LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Cliap. Copyright No. 

Slielf..tiB-l7l.7 
P- lb 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



OUR NATION'S NEED; 






OR. 



LET US ALL DIVIDE UP AND START EVEN. 



BY 



%^, 



■s-U 



O 



J. A. CONWELL. 



Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 



^1 — Jesus Christ. 



But they shall sit every man under his vine and 
under his fig-tree ; and none shall make them afraid. 

— The Lord. 



(Cop3rright, igoo, by C. M. George.) 



NEW YORK: 

J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

57 Rose Street. 



61399 

l,itai?«try of Congrree* 
"^VM C 'J Pits HeceivEO 

OCT 15 1900 

Cc(>yrpW entry 



OCT 24 1 900 




Personal letters to The Author of this book may be addressed td 
57 Rose Street, New York. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. p^GK 

Introductory — The Philosophy of a Divide-up and Start-even 15 

CHAPTER II. 
What a Divide-up and Start-even Would Involve 33 

CHAPTER III. 
How Could It Be Done ? 41 

CHAPTER IV. 
Would It Be Honest to Divide Up ? 55 

CHAPTER V. 
It Has Been Done 73 

CHAPTER VI. 
Are We Prepared for a Divide-up ? 83 

CHAPTER VII. 
Would the Country Be Benefited ? 91 

CHAPTER VIII. 
To Divide-up Would Give the Young a Chance 105 

CHAPTER IX. 
Business Affairs Could be Recast and Renovated 119 



IV Contents. 

CHAPTER X. PAGB 

The Moral and Social Influence 133 

CHAPTER XI. 
Present Political Issues 149 

CHAPTER Xn 
A Livide-up as a Political Issue 187 

CHAPTER XIII. 
A Divide-up and Natural Inequalities 203 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Social Advantages of a Divide-up 209 

CHAPTER XV. 
A Divide-up and Christian Citizenship 231 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Is It Our Duty?.. 237 



PREFACE. 



A DIVISION of our national wealth among all the people, 
as a political measure, must be regarded as an entirely 
new featut-e in American politics. A variety of remedies 
for existing evils and conditions has been proposed by 
political economists and championed by political parties, 
but a divide-up and start-even has not been one of them. 

The measure will not impress the mind favorably at 
first thought. It appears too far-reaching, too difficult, 
too revolutionary. But when the subject is carefully and 
deeply studied these impressions vanish, and the adoption 
of the measure appears not only possible, but practicable 
and wise. In magnitude it is no greater than the nation. 
In its scope it is no farther-reaching than the claims and 
interests of citizenship and family life. 

That a political question should embrace every section 
of the country and place equal privileges within reach of 
every individual is a paramount merit. To make a prop- 
aganda of sectional issues or to thrust into political life 
those things which benefit merely a few can only be pro- 
ductive of evil. Genuine statesmanship can consider 
nothing less than the interests of all the people. 

A divide-up and start-even may be revolutionary, but 
this is no reason why it should not be adopted. The 
world owes untold obligations to revolutionary measures. 
It requires a great issue to arouse mankind to action. 
Reforms are almost sure of defeat. History is crowded 
with dead reforms that expired through lack of support, 
but revolutions have made history. The lesser measures 
fail to secure the following that is essential to success. 

America is rapidly making a new history. Neither the 
experiences of its own past career nor the example of other 
nations can point out our future pathway, Our higher 



7i PREFACE. 

civilization and unrivaled progress demand the adoption 
of new and extraordinary factors in government. While 
these facts are true when applied to human affairs in 
general, they are specially true when applied to financial 
inequalities among the people. Nothing but a tremen- 
dous force can uproot long-established customs and deep- 
seated conditions, no matter how unjust or oppressive 
they may be. 

Concentrated wealth and diffused poverty has become 
a national characteristic. The condition is so pro- 
nounced that the border line of danger has been crossed. 
That plutocracy and poverty, with their attendant evils, 
shall become the dominant issue in politics in the near 
future is inevitable. Nothing less than an equitable divi- 
sion of all property among all the people will meet exist- 
ing requirements. It is the quickest, the easiest, and the 
fairest remedy for the evils that beset us. Wealth is too 
strong and aggressive to submit, and poverty is too weak 
and apathetic to respond, to ordinary remedies. 

This book is the result of a long and systematic course 
of study among men. Our national conditions and cus- 
toms, including the political, financial, industrial, and 
social situation, have been carefully considered. Thou- 
sands of miles have been traveled, and the farm and the 
store, the mine and the mill, the church and the school, 
the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the educated 
and the ignorant, the high and the low — people and things 
as they are — have been severally and collectively studied. 
History, while its fabric was being woven in the complex 
loom of activity, rather than books, has been the chief 
source of investigation. As Luther said at the Diet of 
Worms, ^'Hier stehe ich; ich Jcann nicht anders'' so it 
can be claimed that what is here written has been penned 
under the full assurance of its wisdom and truth. Con- 
viction and not sentiment here seeks expression. 

The principles involved in a general divide-up and start- 
even have an authoritative history, and of the honesty 
and fairness of the measure, if exigencies demand it, 
there is not room for the remotest doubt. It was first 
instituted in obedience to a direct command from God. 
It is % conspicuous and distinguishing feature of Holy 



PBEFAGE. vii 

Writ. It was practiced with more or less regularity by 
a chosen people for seven centuries. These commands are 
still preserved as a sacred and inspired message to men. If 
not literally binding, they are of preeminent value for our 
instruction. During the ages in which these laws were 
obeyed the world reached its highest wisdom and enjoyed 
its richest favors. Stretching over the destinies of the 
Hebrew race and as enduring as the dome of heaven were 
the promises of the Almighty; in its care were the sacred 
oracles of divine law, and in the veins of its people flowed 
the ancestral blood of the Messiah. Upon th'e strict ob- 
servance of these laws did the prosperity and peace of the 
people depend. History plainly teaches that the decline 
of power and the misfortunes among the people of ancient 
Canaan were a sure result when selfishness supplanted 
equity and justice among the people. When the princi- 
ples of equity were again established under the reign of 
Christianity, dividing-up, in all its essential features, was 
again practiced. And again do we learn from history 
that the Dark Ages were the direct result of the triumph 
of greed over the principles taught by the disciples. 

That the teachings of this book will meet opposition is 
inevitable. But adverse criticism is not conclusive evi- 
dence that a doctrine is false or that a book is vicious. 
If any thought or sentiment here expressed conflicts with 
t' i highest type of patriotism, the best interests of the 
nation, or the most critical rendering of divine teaching, 
none could more profoundly regret it than the author. 
Moreover, it has been the constant aim to be fair at every 
point to both rich and poor, and it is hoped that the 
volume will be found entirely free from everything that 
need arouse a spirit of hatred or passion. 

"With charity for all and malice toward none" has 
been the spirit in which the book has been written. While 
the study of the subject has profoundly impressed the 
author with the imperative need of a divide-up and start- 
even, yet at no time have feelings other than those of 
genuine love for both rich and poor stirred his heart. 
He who searches the book to feed fires of hatred toward 
the rich will search in vain. He who reads it to find food 
{or thought and ^n inspiration to patriotic political ser-? 



viii PREFACE. 

vice, it is prayerfully and tearfully hoped, will not be 
turned away empty. 

There is cause in the state of our beloved country for 
serious concern. Every man in the nation is responsi- 
ble for, and is called upon to exercise, his best thought and 
effort. We cannot all see alike. We cannot all agree. 
But we can all be sincere in faith and loyal in action, 
Out of our honest differences and inevitablv conflicting 
opinions will come, in due time, the happy solution of 
all questions upon which the peace and prosperity of our 
country depend. 

The book is not sent forth as an exhaustive treatise 
upon the subject. Not only could almost every point 
have been enlarged upon, but a legion of facts and 
thoughts crowd about the subject for recognition. The 
subject is boundless in its scope and its application is 
almost without limit. Nothing but determined effort has 
kept the book within its present compass. The theme 
offers a rich field for study and thought. It is worthy 
to engage the services of the best intellect and talent the 
nation possesses. May many so endowed enlist in its 
cause ! 

THE AUTHOE. 

September, 1900, 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 

It is with special pleasure that the Publishers send forth 
the present volume to the public. Widely as men may 
differ in opinions regarding the teachi7igs set forth in the 
booh, all must agree that it is a valuable contribution to 
the political literature of the day. It is a signal illustration 
of how political questions of the most advanced sort can be 
discussed with a sweet temper and in a Christian spirit. 
Existing parties are not even mentioned, and no man is 
thrust with a single arrow. The booJc is a mine of infor- 
mation. It is rich in thought. In suggestion it has, we 
believe, no rival. Many of its paragraphs are gems of 
truth and wisdom worthy of the widest circulation. Those 
interested in political progress will find it an indispensable 
companion and booh of reference. It is not the ventila- 
tion of a hobby, but it is broad and comprehensive in its 
scope. It is timely. It is wholesome and instructive. It 
is forceful and inspiring. Its universal perusal could not 
be other than a great uplift to the politics of the nation. 

THE PUBLISHERSc 



"On earth peace, good-will toward men.** 

My country, 'tis of thee. 
Sweet land of liberty. 

Of thee I sing: 
Land where my fathers died. 
Land of the pilgrim's pride, 
' From every mountain side 
Let freedom ring. — Smith. 

No man has come to true greatness who has not felt, in some 
degree, that his life belongs to his race, and that what God 
gives him He gives him for mankind. — Phillips Bbooks. 

Prosperity is best secured when the medium-clas* income pre- 
vails; when no citizen is so rich that he can buy others, and no 
one so poor that he might be compelled to sell himself. — 

EOUSSEAU. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are cre- 
ated equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. — Declabation of Independence. 

It is not to be assumed, as is done by most writers on this 
subject, that the modern form of the distribution of wealth is 
the final and perfect one; and that society, as it is now, is 
substantially what it must be in ail coming ages, or what our 
Lord contemplated in His future "Kingdom of Heaven." — C. 
LoRiNG Brace. 

Half the world is on the wrong scent in pursuit of happiness. 
They think it consists in having and getting and in being served 
by others. It consists in giving and serving others. "He that 
would be great among you," said Christ, "let him remember 
that there is but one way — it is more blessed, it is more happy, 
to give than to receive." — ^Henry Drummond. 



14 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 

CHAPTEE I. 

INTRODUCTORY — THE PHILOSOPHY OF A DIVIDE-UP. 

In considering the subject of a general divide-up of 
the wealth of the United States among all the people and 
allowing everybody to start even, it is to be decided, first, 
whether or not the measure is a legitimate or essential 
factor in popular government. Can the process of gov- 
ernment operate in the broadest, fairest, and best 
sense indefinitely without resort to it? Does the com- 
mon good never require the adoption of such a measure? 
Would a divide-up and start-even correct abuses and re- 
move unjust conditions which will not yield to any other 
influence? In a word, is it the only remedy for certain 
evils which, in the course of human events, even under 
the best form of government, are liable to fasten them- 
selves upon a nation? 

If a divide-up of property is never necessary; if other 
measures will meet all requirements; if other available 
remedies are less objectionable and more easily applied; 
if the machinery of popular government is complete and 
adequate without it, then the subject has no claims what- 
ever to serious consideration. 

But if it is necessary; if other measures fail to remove 
unjust conditions and to remedy prevailing evils; if the 
combined action of all other legitimate policies fails to 
meet the demands of progress and civilization ; and if the 
execution of a general divide-up will give to our laws and 
efforts a sjrmmetry and completeness which they now lack, 
then the measure is entitled to respect and should be 
adopted. If it is the only cure, or even the best remedy, 
lor certain inevitable andl otherwise incorrigible evils, it 



16 OUE NATI0N^8 NEED, 

becomes a patriotic and sacred duty to resort to it and 
thus secure the benefits and blessings which it alone can 
bring. 

If we closely examine the philosophy which underlies 
the measure, we shall plainly see that it would counteract 
certain morbid outgrowths of human nature that can be 
reached in no other way. Dividing-up and the cancella- 
tion of debts were not enjoined upon the government of 
Israel forty centuries ago without a good reason. From 
the councils of heaven it came forth as a vital part of the 
most perfect plan to promote peace and prosperity among 
a favored nation that divine wisdom could teach. 

It was then an actual necessity. It aims at and effectu- 
ally holds in reasonable check those traits in our make-up 
— the essence of human nature — which are beyond the 
control of law or even religion. No fact is more evident 
or more universally admitted than that man's human 
nature is his chief development, and that nothing so 
quickly errs, nothing so often invades forbidden fields, 
and nothing is so difficult to control; and at no time is 
this human nature so erring, so intensely selfish, or so 
heedless and uncontrollable as when running in the race 
for wealth. 

ISTo matter how thoroughly a people may be provided 
with good laws, or how consistently they may obey the 
precepts of religion, they will inevitably, as time passes 
on, show a great diversity of achievement. Our inherent 
force and talents exhibit marked extremes, and we oper- 
ate in an endless variety of fields. Only time and the 
full exercise of our energies are needed for extremes in 
accomplishment, including the acquirement of wealth, to 
ensue. Some will succeed, while others fail. Out of the 
same materials some will build palaces and others hovels. 
Some will grow rich, while others will become poor. 
Some avocations tend toward wealth and others toward 
its opposite. The same talent, or effort, or amuition may 
lead to either financial extreme — success or failure. 
The final result will be unnatural, undesirable, and un- 
just conditions. Perhaps, after all, the actual ability of 
man has less to do with financial success than many 
thoughtful observers are apt to believe. 



"^ OXIR NATION'S NEED. 17 

When extremes of wealth and poverty have grown so 
pronounced as to become a menace to the public good, if 
no other adequate remedy exists a divide-up is a neces- 
sity. At such times it becomes not simply a philan- 
thropic, but an economic measure. It might well be con- 
sidered as the missing link in our political history, as the 
lost art in the genius of government. 

Viewed from a proper standpoint, a divide-up and 
start-even at once becomes a subject of vital interest. 
For there is every reason for believing that it would 
largely settle the unsolved problems of the nations. The 
momentous questions of modern times are those which 
concern wealth and poverty, capital and labor. In the 
midst of the extremes, which have grown so pronounced 
and universal, the greatest statesmen of the world stand 
apparently helpless. In the face of persistent discon- 
tent, intense political agitation, and legislative considera- 
tion, unjust inequalities and financial evils exist and con- 
stantly increase. Subjected to all applied remedies, they 
survive as the incurable political and social disease. 

Inequalities, although natural and wholesome at first, 
become actual evils through slow processes. Their in- 
justice may exist and grow in a nation for generations 
and not seriously disturb industry or society ; and to some 
extent it will correct itself. But when a certain point is 
reached; when the injustice becomes widespread and over- 
powering; when its burdens begin to crush; when man 
must bow to it and not simply endure ; when industry and 
society lose their recuperative powers; when permanent 
and organic lesions in the body financial, social, and 
political have become fixed, then ordinary laws and or- 
dinary remedies, no matter how vigilantly applied, become 
noneffective and vain. At such times mankind is thrown 
upon its own responsibility. The deeper qualities of soul 
are stirred. Character is tempered in the furnace of 
sacrifice. But in the struggle humanity triumphs and 
lifts itself to a higher plane. The world has witnessed 
many such struggles. It is God's way of making a foot- 
print in human history. 

As with an individual, so it is with a nation. For the 
establishment of its own stability of character it is essen- 



18 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

tial that it occasionally undergo a test of its strength and 
virtue. Pure gold is secured only through the applica- 
tion of the purifying fire, and only through hotly con- 
tested warfares between right and wrong, justice and 
oppression, are the worthy principles of nations developed 
and made secure. "Nations are benefited for ages," says 
Carlyle, "by being thrown once into divine white heat 
in this manner, and no nation that has not had such divine 
paroxysms at any time is apt to come to much." It is 
essential that every element, whether true or false, noble 
or base, face the force of the storm — that all things be 
shaken "that those things which cannot be shaken may 
remain." 

Conditions demanding the exercise of extraordinary 
forces in government exist to-day. Current laws, no mat- 
ter how impartial or how considerate they are of the 
weak against the strong, fail to meet the requirements. 
The demand for a special force in the realm of govern- 
ment is heard and felt upon every side. The chief 
need of this force is shown in the widespread prevalence 
of concentrated wealth and diffused poverty. The need 
and practicability of a general divide-up and start-even 
are as clear to the unbiased mind as the need of rain 
when the earth is parched by continued sunshine or the 
need of bread when the people are starving with hunger. 

When accorded the place it deserves among the issues 
operating to promote the best welfare of the nation, a 
divide-up becomes not only an honest and desirable 
policy, but accords with wise statesmanship and sound 
business principles. 

A fact not to be misconstrued is: a divide-up would be 
simply the application of a remedy and not the adoption 
of a political system to rule or embarrass the future. It 
is a cure for the present great national disease and the 
evils growing out of it, and not the creation of a new 
form of government. As a remedy it may be severe, but 
its execution has no binding effect upon the future. 
Medicine is often unpleasant in its taste and action, and 
when the disease for which it is administered is cured 
it is discontinued. When a nation takes up arms and 
engages in warfare, it is not the intention that such action 



OJTB NATION^S NEED, 19 

shall be perpetual. So it is with a divide-up of property. 
There are doubtless unpleasant features surrounding it. 
It would disturb the ease of many. It would thwart the 
plans of not a few. Its virtue may be limited to actual 
needs. Its operation should cease when normal condi- 
tions were restored. It is not here even claimed that a 
universal level of wealth among all the people is in itself 
desirable. On the contrary, a reasonable diversity of owner- 
ship is both wholesome and proper. To coerce the people 
to such a universal level as a permanent state, through the 
power of law, would be a doom rather than blessing. 
But a universal level is absolutely safe and affords a 
desirable starting-point from which natural and desir- 
able diversities of wealth and action radiate. 

If extremes of wealth and poverty need correcting, it 
is deeply essential that only proper and effective remedies 
be employed. By analyzing the various forces, issues, 
and policies which have molded and are now shaping 
public affairs, it is easily seen that to each belongs a 
limited scope of usefulness, and that each has been a 
blessing only when operating within its own legitimate 
field. Warfare, legislation, religion, and social move- 
ments have resulted in good only when filling their respec- 
tive missions. War, the most conspicuous factor in his- 
tory, has benefited mankind only when its aid was im- 
perative to enthrone a righteous cause. Laws, although 
they form the structure upon which society is founded 
and are of varied application, lose their virtue and in- 
flict an injury when they operate beyond their proper 
sphere. Eeligion, the most sacred and potent force in the 
world, has often become a cruel despotism by assuming 
an authority it has no right to claim. 

Legislators and statesmen have no plainer duty than 
to see that these and every other worthy measure per- 
form their proper mission. Within its own sphere, every 
desirable element of force should be made to exercise its 
full power. The nation is entitled to all the benefits that 
can come from the harmonious cooperation of every- 
thing that leads in the direction of the greatest good to 
the greatest number. To secure such to the people is the 
proper function of statesmanship. 



20 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

In the rapid evolutions of civilization, it is natural 
that some forces, which served well a former age, should 
lose their virtue, and that other factors rise to meet the 
requirements of new occasions. But it is seldom safe 
to lay aside the implements of past victories until we 
possess the armor of new conquests. "Eternal vigilance 
is the price of liberty." We can become independent of 
war only by learning the arts of peace. No sooner are the 
cruelties of superstition and ignorance overcome than the 
conflicts against the vices of civilization must begin. 
.When indifference and apathy have been aroused into 
activity, tempted by morbid ambition, they soon become 
giants of avarice and greed, to rule or ruin until, through 
the power of justice, they are subdued. 

It is important to learn what forces are involved in 
present transitions. What elements of power suited to 
the past have outlived their usefulness? 

The chief of these is, unquestionably, war. 

For forty centuries war has been a chief dependence 
in times of great public controversies. Thousands of our 
citizens believe that the differences existing between 
capital and labor will eventually culminate in a resort to 
arms. It is the impression that war purifies and strength- 
ens a government ; that it makes business active and profit- 
able ; that it removes a surplus of men, giving more room 
and opportunity for those who survive ; and that, in addi- 
tion to settling differences, it is an essential and economic 
factor in progressive civilization. The evidences of the 
past, to the average mind at least, encourage such opin- 
ions. While war has been universally deplored, it has 
been regarded as a necessary evil. 

Nothing has been so fruitful of popular glory, nothing 
so lavish in bestowing fame and renown as war. In- 
delibly do we write the names of warriors in history, and 
we adorn sacred niches with monuments to their memory. 

But war is doomed. The prophecy that war shall cease, 
let us hope, is being rapidly fulfilled. It has grown dis- 
tasteful and is abhorred. "War is hell." It is con- 
demned by public sentiment and by the popular heart. 
Modem statesmen are rapidly ignoring its claims, and it 
has ceased to be even considered in genuine reform. 



OUR I^ATION^S NEED, 21 

The brutality of war, its cost in life and property, and 
its antagonism to genuine progress render it peculiarly 
repugnant to the world's present state of civilization. 
The Czar of Eussia, who is at the head of the largest army 
in the world, some time ago proposed a peace conference 
of the nations of the earth. His appeal has not only 
favorably impressed other rulers, but has sensibly touched 
the hearts of all mankind. As an outgrowth of his efforts 
was held the World's Peace Conference, every advance step 
of which was hailed with universal approval and delight. 
War has already burdened the nations of the earth by debt 
to the verge of bankruptcy. Nothing has so impoverished 
and weakened governments, many of which are hopelessly 
involved. ^^Militarism,'' said Gladstone, "lies like a vam- 
pire over Europe." Queen Victoria recently declared: 
"Sooner than see my kingdom again resort to war, I 
would pray God that I might die." Yet war has clouded 
her declining years. War is not only inhuman and un- 
christian, but, on account of improved armaments, all 
humanity stands appalled at its future inevitable magni- 
tude and power to destroy. 

But it is a mistake to imagine that war will cease of 
itself. Nor is it to be subdued by resolutions or inter- 
national agreements. It will cease only when it is out- 
grown. It is folly to believe that war can be abolished 
unless more desirable and effective forces take its place 
in our political system. It is a delusion to think that 
when war is no more peace will be free. To be relieved 
of its dangers and dread is to be clothed with new duties 
and responsibilities. 

A lesson well worth learning is that in the midst of ordi- 
nary civilization, war is a law unto itself. It submits to 
no force, heeds no counsel, obeys no command. War is 
greater than nations, stronger than resolves, mightier than 
human will. Power has ever been its willing vassal. 
Governments have cowered before it like brutes before 
their master. Heroes and patriots have vied with each 
other in worshiping at its altars. Religion has been as 
tinder to feed its crimson flames. Its carnage and blood, 
its destruction and death only bring glory, dazzling to 
the brain and inspiring to the heart of all mankind. 



22 OUR NATION'S NEED, 

"Gentlemen may cry peace ! peace ! But there is no peace !" 
exclaimed Patrick Henry, and his words will remain true 
until war is outwitted and peace honestly and intelli- 
gently won. "Give me liberty or give me death" has been 
the invincible battle-cry of all the ages, and wherever 
slavery, injustice or oppression abounds, its direful mut- 
terings can be heard to-day. Channing has well said that 
"war will never yield but to the principles of universal 
justice and love." Suggestive and true are the words of 
Whittier: 

^^ But dream not helm and harness 
The sign of valor true; 
Peace hath higher tests of manhood 
Than battle ever knew/* 

If war is the declining star in the political firmament, 
what new elements of force are required to meet present 
conditions and harmonize the conflicting interests of 
progress? What is to characterize the new political 
system ? 

The answer to these questions suggests itself. A right- 
eous and equitable adjustment of existing wrongs; just 
laws; equal privileges and security to all; protection to 
the home; religious and civil liberty; clean politics; pub- 
lic honesty; private virtue; protection of the innocent 
against the vicious and of the weak against the strong; 
proper recognition of labor; equal rights to every one; 
opportunities to the young; support to the -aged; relief 
to the suffering and maintenance of the national honor. 
These things must become tenets of faith in the realm of 
citizenship. That these things become established verities 
is the prayer of every loyal heart and the zealous aim ol 
all true patriots. These things must in the future, more . 
than they have in the past, characterize our political life 
if the country is to survive and liberty prevail. 

But citizenship is now being denied its political ideals. 
A gigantic wrong usurps the popular will. This great 
evil — the concentration of wealth and power in the hands 
of the few and the diffusion of poverty and industrial 
slavery among the many — ^is seen and felt everywhere. It 



OUR N'ATION^S NEED. 23 

permeates every phase of life and has intrenched itself in 
every form of society. American pluck and ambition, 
spurred on by unprecedented success, has become an out- 
law. Mankind, inspired by a new love, has turned to the 
worship of Mammon; and mammonism has become the 
octopus of modern civilization, menacing all that is essen- 
tial to life and corrupting all that is precious to the heart. 

Money has become a god and as such is the root of 
all evil. Mammonism is the source of most of the misery, 
crime, and perfidy — things which are constantly growing 
more pronounced. It has filled our land with distrust 
and discontent. Its unjust, cruel, and enslaving domin- 
ion is a familiar subject at almost every American fireside. 

As the outgrowth of the existing extremes of wealth 
and poverty, a formidable array of evils has developed 
and their endurance has become the nations' shame. 
Labor is robbed of its just reward. Success is made 
within reach of only a fev»^. Crushing competition pre- 
vents normal enterprise. The ambitions of the young 
are defeated and their opportunities destroyed. The poor 
are made helpless and the aged dependent. The great 
middle class in trade and enterprise is being wiped out. 
Trusts and syndicates conspire against the people. 
Bribery is practiced wholesale. The political boss is en- 
throned. Elections are little else than a game of farce. 
Legislation has become a commercial commodity. ISTo 
business is too base and no practice too vile for human 
greed. Vice and shame are staple commodities in the 
markets of sin. The love of gold barters away the bodies 
and blights the souls of the people. Nothing is more 
truly remarkable than the way in which all the evils of 
the present age converge toward a common center — and 
that center is mammonism. 

It is also remarkable how these curses prevail through- 
out civilization. Mammonism is the besetting sin of 
Christendom. Concentrated wealth and diffused poverty 
are the dominating evil in almost every land. Empires, 
kingdoms, and republics are alike facing the same formid- 
able enemy. Mammonism is the central political prob- 
lem and the chief barrier to progress everywhere. That 
the curse universally prevails shows that the same weak 
feature marks the career of all forms of government. 



24 OITB NATION'S NEED. 

Proof is abundant that ordinary remedies completely 
fail in conflicts against the powers of money. In the face 
of all opposition, the curse of mammonism has constantly 
grown and become more and more established. Systems 
of law have proved a failure; organized forces have been 
in vain. It has fortified itself against every opposition. 
It has fattened upon war. It is the subtle tempter and 
canker-worm in times of peace. 

But there is a remedy that would destroy this universal 
plague. A divide-up and start-even exactly meets the re- 
quirements. It is the political, the social, and the re- 
ligious issue of the world. Its practicability is not a 
va^ue theory. It is not a far-fetched, mysterious scheme 
that only a few can comprehend. Its results, if carried 
out, are too plainly apparent to be mere speculation. As 
an issue in politics it would represent every section and 
interest. 

As an illustration: it would not be difficult to appreci- 
ate what a boom a divide-up and start-even would be to 
the older nations. Take Great Britain and Ireland. For 
more than a half century the people of these isles have 
submitted to conditions unfair and infamous in the ex- 
treme. Fifty years ago they supported 400,000 paupers, 
and the number has constantly increased until at pres- 
ent nearly 1,000,000 are receiving public help. The 
population is a little over 37,000,000, and of these 8,000,- 
000 are constantly on the verge of destitution and 20,000,- 
000 are actually poor. On the other hand, one-half of 
the national income flows into the pockets of 10,000 
persons, and 30,000 capitalists, peers, and lords own 90 
per cent, of the land. Over 90 per cent, of the people 
own no land whatever. Legions are born in poverty, live 
in penury, and are buried in the potter's field. During 
these fifty years Great Britain and Ireland have produced 
some of the greatest statesmen that ever lived. They have 
been ruled by a sovereign who for private virtue and pub- 
lic interest has seldom been equaled. And the loyalty of 
the people has been unbounded. In the development of 
those forces which pertain to material progress and in the 
intelligence and enterprise of the people no nation has 
more right to boast. But concentrated wealth and dif- 



UB NATION '8 NEED, 25 

fused poverty hang like a plague over the people. Plu- 
tocracy and poverty is the monumental curse of Great 
Britain and Ireland to-day, and unless the people arise 
and free themselves their condition is hopeless. For them 
to live in submission means privation, oppression, squalor, 
and dependence for themselves and their children. 

If the earth and the fullness thereof is the Lord^s and 
if all mankind are the children of a common Father, it 
is dishonor to God and disloyalty to human brotherhood 
not to rise up and, in the name of justice and humanity, 
to demand a universal and equitable division of property 
among all the people of these richly favored isles. 

Yet what Great Britain and Ireland have done we are 
doing. We are becoming plutocrats and paupers at a 
rate without a precedent in all history. By continuing 
our present policies of finance and business we shall 
soon exhibit a condition similar in all its chief features 
and, on account of our free form of government, far more 
intolerable. Sordid conservation is already trying to rec- 
oncile the laboring man and the masses to their lot. It 
is being industriously taught that equality, prosperity, 
and plenty, in the liberal sense, is an idle dream. Mam- 
monism was never more vigilant in organizing and array- 
ing itself against the interests of the people. If allowed 
to continue it will eventually make poverty a hopeless 
fate and riches a power invulnerable. 

Nothing can he more apparent than the claims of a 
divide-up of property as an issue in American politics. 
To destroy the greatest evil or to enthrone the greatest 
good to the greatest number should always be the first aim 
in political action. 

That concentrated wealth and diffused poverty exist 
as the greatest curse in our nation is apparent to every 
unbiased and thoughtful observer. It is not only the 
greatest, but it is the parent evil, and other evils are its 
offspring. It is of all curses the most world-wide. It 
has no rival. No other evil is so established; none so 
universal; none so defiant to law; none so destructive to 
life and character; none so menacing to human liberty 
and the life of the republic. It forms the source of con- 
tention between capital and labor. It is the bane of so- 



26 OUR NATION'S NEED, 

eiety, placing a gnlf between the classes and the masses. 
It is the skeleton in the church whose presence God and 
the angels forsake. It is the autocrat in businesSj killing 
the weak and protecting the strong. It is the potent 
danger behind the monopoly and trust. That it exists 
in foreign countries to a greater degree than in our own 
land, making wage-earning more abject and its slavery 
more secure, is the vital point of the tariff issue. Its 
power is the backbone of the money question. It is the 
protecting wall of the liquor business. It is the cesspool 
in which is drowned the character of men and the virtue 
of women. It furnishes the sinews of w^ar in dirty poli- 
tics. It is the sin of the bribe-giver and the shame of 
the bribe-taker. It is the destruction of the rich and the 
doom of the poor. 

The Civil War opened up a new era in money-making. 
Steadily and with increasing momentum great fortunes 
have multiplied and become established. For three dec- 
ades men have been drifting toward the two extremes 
until a few possess a very large part — the very cream of 
our nation^s wealth — and the majority of the people are 
being crushed into poverty, industrial slavery, and hope- 
less despair. 

According to recent and trustworthy authorities upon 
the subject, the concentration of wealth and the wide- 
spread prevalence of poverty is appalling. The safety 
limit has been crossed. 

What are the facts? 

One per cent, of the people own over 50 per cent, of 
the wealth of the United States, and their possessions are 
the most productive and profitable of which the nation can 
boast. 

Ninety-nine per cent, of the people own less than one- 
half of the nation^ s wealth. 

One family in a hundred, take the country over, own 
more than the other ninety-nine families. In other words, 
ten families in each 1,000 families could buy out the other 
990 families and have something left. 

Fifty per cent, of the people — over 6,000,000 families 
— own practically nothing; only their clothes and a little 
furniture. 



OUR NATION '8 NEED. 27 

Millionaires are counted by thousands. Several for- 
tunes, it is claimed, have passed beyond $100,000,000 each. 
Seventy per cent, of the wealth of the entire nation is 
controlled by 200,000 men. 

One million men practically own the United States, 
while a vast majority of the people are forced to struggle 
for shelter and bread. The great middle class, so long 
the strength and glory of the republic is being crowded 
out. Prosperity is being limited to the few. 

According to Dun's Review the number of failures in 
May, 1900, was ^^not only the largest ever known in that 
month since such records were made, but of eighty months 
covered by these returns only six have shown such large 
liabilities.^^ Of these 947 failures only one was a great 
concern; the rest were all from the smaller or medium 
class. Dun's Review further says that the amount in- 
volved in failures for the first six months of 1900 was 
more than double that of 1899. Prosperity increasing ! 
Failures doubling! 

Notwithstanding the fact that failures among the med- 
ium-class enterprises doubled in one year, prosperity 
among great concerns was never so great. Among the 
beginners and middle class, competition and bankruptcy 
were never such a scourge. Fatness and famine are be- 
coming related counterparts in the realm of business. 
"Wealth has grown not only powerful, but aggressive and 
consuming. Poverty is becoming not only weak, but 
indifferent and a willing prey. It is a new condition that 
confronts the American people. Class distinctions, affect- 
ing every phase of existence, that have cursed and crushed 
empires and kingdoms are settling like a vampire upon 
our own land and are devouring the life-blood of the 
nation. This condition is becoming a fixed fact and 
dominates and controls our social and financial system. 
Its power is overwhelming. It ignores law. It defies 
correction. It robs youth of opportunity and drives age 
to penury. It is vice's alluring companion; it is virtue's 
relentless foe. It blights character and religion. It 
crushes hope and ambition. It petrifies the heart of the 
rich and deadens the faith of the poor. It makes of 
capital an unwilling tyrant and of labor a helpless slave. 



28 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

It has turned wholesome competition into a wild race for 
supremacy. In the realm of business men are no longer 
brothers, but antagonists in a conflict in which money, not 
manhood, is the ruling force. The abnormal success of 
the few has made money-making a passion. In the mad 
rush for fortune we devour each other. In business we 
have become cannibals — those with much eat up those 
with little. As the small fish are swallowed by the mon- 
ster, so it is that the small merchant and manufacturer 
are swallowed by the great concern whose abundancce of 
capital can control the market and maintain a monopoly. 
The condition has become the nation^s scourge. In its 
presence law is as tinder and legislators as clay to be 
r *ded and manipulated at will. Its continuation means 
an -aristocracy holding the nation^s wealth and a people 
enslaved by poverty and fated to despair. Genuine patri- 
otism can no longer deny its ravages nor ignore its pres- 
ence. Justice, liberty, humanity, and the common herit- 
ages of citizenship demand its overthrow. 

That the accumulated 'powers of greed he destroyed is 
imperative. Too long already has it crushed and cursed 
mankind. The unjust conditions which prevail every- 
where and which constantly grow more powerful and op- 
pressive suggest but one remedy — a divide-up of all prop- 
erty among all the people ; and when this is accomplished, 
the enactment of such laws as will insure justice and fail 
opportunities to all in the future. 

The division of property among the people and the 
cancellation of debt at proper intervals, as laws, for the 
government of human affairs, have an authoritative 
origin. The world seems to have forgotten that these 
commands were given to mankind by God and stand in 
the Bible beside the Ten Commandments. Viewed from 
the proper standpoint, they are an essential part of a com- 
plete governmental system. A division of property can- 
not be regarded as other than God's law, and divine laws 
are perfect in that they harmonize with each other. They 
are all connected by vital relations. Whoever offends in 
one point is guilty of all. To divide up is a part of a 
complete circle. To ignore it is to break the circle and 
confuse everything. 



OUB NATION'S NEED. 29 

Furthermore, to divide up, like all divine commands, 
is a natural law. It is a vital part of the natural law of 
the political world. Its need is as visibly read in the 
oppressions endured by an outraged society as is the 
inspired language upon the sacred page. The literal 
status of the original command is a question upon which 
men may differ. To decide either way matters little. 

But human nature remains the same. A special force 
is still needed to maintain the normal equipoise. If a 
divide-up would harmonize business and financial rela- 
tions and create natural conditions, it cannot be safely set 
aside and ignored. Freed from prejudice, it awakens the 
deepest convictions of patriotism. Thus viewed, it be- 
comes as much a duty as though God should again make 
known His will, as He did from Sinai, and write a com- 
mand to divide up all property and cancel all debts across 
the dome of the heavens. 

As a political issue, a divide-up and start-even need not 
be a wrangle of hatreds between the rich and the poor. 
Such a measure should be instituted, not that the rich 
are loved less, but that justice and country are loved and 
honored more. The hatred and calumny heaped upon 
the rich are unwarranted, and show a covetous rather than 
a patriotic spirit. There are very few who would not be 
rich were it within their power. The rich are no worse 
than the poor. The rich and the poor are perhaps equally 
selfish. Many are rich because they are honorable and 
upright — through habits of economy, industry, and per- 
severance. There can never be a serious conflict exclu- 
sively between the rich and the poor. Nor is it possible 
to condemn either and exalt the other. "ISTeither wealth 
nor poverty gives us any clew to character or furnishes us 
a criterion by which we may measure the soul and judge 
of the dimensions of the man himself.'^ Legions of men 
are well-to-do, and even rich, because they deserve to be; 
and legions are poor because they are conscientious and 
unselfish. The lives of many men are one long self-sacri- 
fice, like that of Professor Agassiz, who said: "I have no 
time to make money." On the other hand, many are 
rich and many are poor for reasons which are neither a 
credit nor an honor, Kiches and poverty are pften a 



30 OUB NATION'S NEED. 

matter of birth, of circumstances, of sheer luck, or the 
lack of it. Indeed, wealth and poverty are so haphazard 
and inconsistent in their dealings with mankind that their 
regulation by a force more powerful than either is made 
imperative. 

To adopt the measure, therefore, would be the enthrone- 
ment of a principle and not an issue between classes of 
mankind. It should be adopted because it is an impera- 
tive requirement' of a progressive and enlightened age, 
and not as a sentiment. It should be carried out, not that 
some might gain, but as a matter of straightforward busi- 
ness; not because it would bless a part, but that it is 
necessary for the good of all; not because it is rigfht, but 
because nothing else will meet the present demands of 
humanity and common justice. 



Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even 
BO to them. — Christ. 

And thou, my country, write it on my heart — 
Thy sons are they who nobly take thy part; 
Who dedicates his manhood at thy shrine, 
Wherever born, is born a son of thine. — Van Dyke. 

Our Government, by its organization, is necessarily identified 
with the interests of the people; and it relies exclusively on 
their attachment for its durability and support. — George 
Bancroft. 

Wealth, so far as it consists in comfortable shelter, and food, 
and raiment for all mankind, in competence for every bodily 
want and in abundance for every mental and spiritual need, 
is so valuable, so precious, that if any earthly object should be 
worthy of idolatry, this might be the idol. . . . But 
wealth as the means of an idle or voluptuous life; wealth as a 
fosterer of pride and the petrifier of the human heart; wealth 
as the iron rod with which to beat the poor into submission to 
its will — this is all the curses of Pandora concentrated into 
one. — Horace Mann. 

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance 
on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to 
each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. — 
Declaration of Independence. 

All tyranny begins with denial by men to their brothers of 
the equal use of the gifts of a common Father. So to-day the 
monopolist, the destroyer of liberty, like Cain, his ancient pro- 
totype, conspires against his brothers, seeking to possess him- 
self of the favors of God bestowed equally upon all. — Gov. 
John D. Rodgers. 

. . Gather the young . . . and teach them that their 
country has appointed only one altar and one sacrifice for all 
her sons; and that ambition and avarice must be slain on that 
altar, for it is consecrated to humanity. — William H. Seward. 



8^ 



OJIB NATION'S NEED. 33 



CHAPTEK II. 

WHAT A DIVIDE-UP AND STAKT-EVEN WOULD INVOLVE. 

To DIVIDE up all the wealth of the United States among 
the people would not only be a radical measure, but far- 
reaching in its influence and results. At the same time, 
it is not difficult to comprehend, with considerable 
definiteness, what the undertaking would involve. 

There is no reason why such a measure could not be 
instituted and carried out peacefully, systematically, 
honestly, and thoroughly. In these respects it would 
radically differ from what is witnessed when new condi- 
tions are accomplished as the results of war, with its 
attendant bloodshed and devastation of property. A com- 
plete and universal division could be made without shed- 
ding a drop of blood, blighting a single life, or crush- 
ing beyond repair a single home. 

The difficulties which seem to interdict the measure 
are imaginary rather than real. It is possible at any time 
to ascertain with marked exactness the entire possessions 
of the United States, and to learn of what materials this 
wealth consists. We have repeatedly measured the extent 
of our domain, counted the number of acres and farms 
and homes, and estimated with expert care the wealth 
and worth of mountain, mine, and forest. 

It is a part of our governmental routine at proper in- 
tervals to investigate the more interesting developments 
of the nation and record them. Once in each decade 
we place upon record the number of men, the number of 
women, and the number of children. We learn what they 
do to earn a livelihood, what they receive for their services, 
and what constitutes their individual possessions, so far 
as necessary to serve the purposes of public interests. We 
learn much regarding the social standing, the religious 
relations, and the industrial and business enterprise of 



34 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

the people. We learn how many persons are born each 
year, how many get married, and how many die. Vv^e. 
learn approximately how many are able-bodied and capable 
of earning a living, and how many are defective and un- 
able to support themselves. We know how many are en- 
gaged in the various professions, trades, and other depart- 
ments of enterprise. We learn the number of vocations 
and their relation to each other. We know about how 
much business the nation is doing, the kind and quantity of 
goods we consume ourselves, how many we send to foreign 
lands, and how many and what kind of goods we import 
in return. We know the natural advantages of our coun- 
try, its resources and productions, its rivers and harvests, 
its enterprise and its varied possibilities. We know its 
settled principles of government, the foundations upon 
which it rests, and the constant and loyal devotion it de- 
mands of its citizens. 

The great magnitude of our country need not materially 
add to the difficulties attending a division of property 
among the people. It can be truthfully claimed that the 
United States as a whole are more completely and ac- 
curately epitomized and estimated than is possible with 
any of its divisions or subdivisions. We are a unit rather 
than a collection of units. Only as an inseparable union 
do we hold supremacy or can our possessions be measured. 

The nation as a whole is also more permanent than any 
of its parts. Not only men, but inventions, vocations, 
laws, professions, customs, and policies of government are 
born, serve a period of usefulness, die, and pass into his- 
tory. But the nation as a whole, as a concrete unit, sur- 
vives and maintains a rapid development. 

According to the abstract of the census of 1890, "the 
total true valuation of all tangible property in the United 
States exclusive of Alaska, at the census period of 1890, 
amounted to $65,037,091,197, of which amount $39,544,- 
544,333 represents the value of real estate and improve- 
ments thereon, and $25,492,546,964 that of personal prop- 
erty, including railroads, mines, and quarries." These 
figures represent what would be a fair selling price at the 
time the census was taken. 

The population of the United States on June 1, 1890, 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 35 

as shown by tKe general enumeration for the States and 
organized Territories, was 62,622,250. This included 
every person and all ages. 

If the total wealth was $65,037,091,197 and the total 
population 62,622,250, the per capita wealth of the nation 
was, therefore, a little over $1,038. To this should be 
added about $22 in money for each individual, which 
would make $1,060 for each man, woman, and child at 
the last census. 

The increase of wealth of the United States from 1850 
to 1890, a period of forty years, is as follows : 

Value of real and personal property in 

1850 $7,135,780,228 

Value of real and personal property in 

1860 16,159,616,068 

Value of real and personal property in 

1870 30,068,518,507 

Value of real and personal property in 

1880 4*^,642,000,000 

Value of real and personal property in 

1890 65,037,091,197 

The above figures show a remarkable increase of wealth. 
It is interesting to note that the increase in value of the 
United States was threefold greater between 1880 and 
1890 than the entire value of the nation in 1850. In 
other words, the gain in wealth in America during the 
first 350 years was not one-third as great as it was during 
the years from 1880 to 1890. One year of modern prog- 
ress adds more to the wealth of the nation than a century 
did in its earlier history. 

The per capita wealth for the past forty years, accord- 
ing to official census reports, is as follows: 

Per capita valuation in 1850 $308 

« " '' 1860 614 

« « « 1870 780 

'' " « 1880 870 

« « « 1890 1,038 



86 OVR NATION'S NEED. 

If the same general increase that characterized the ten 
years between 1880 and 1890 continues, at the end of the 
present census decade (1900) the population will be about 
77,000,000, the wealth will be over $92,000,000,000, and 
the per capita wealth will be not far from $1,200. 

If a divide-up of property were to take place it woul ''. 
be accompanied by various incidental reforms and adjust- 
ments which would change, to some extent, the total valua- 
tion of our national possessions. 

For instance : there has been for many years a growing 
demand that the Government assume ownership of mines, 
railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, and other national 
monopolies. There is also a similar demand that munici- 
palities and other public bodies assume the ownership of 
various enterprises of a public nature, such as water-works, 
light-plants, and street-railway lines, which are now 
largely held by private interests. In the event of a divide- 
up a large amount of land now unimproved, especially in 
the Western States, would become public domain. 

Again : there have grown up many schemes of enterprise 
of a questionable character which injure society and de- 
fraud the people and are an actual menace to the public 
good. These could during a general divide-up be con- 
demned and forbidden in the future, without embarrass- 
ing those who now profit by them. 

On the other hand, there is a large number of enter- 
prises which represent great actual value, but escape being 
properly considered in census reports. These would 
greatly augment the total valuation of the wealth of the 
nation as usually estimated. 

If the changes made balanced each other, and in the 
adjustment between public and private interests property 
to the value of $15,000,000,000 (which must be considered 
a liberal allowance) were transferred from the realm of 
private property to public ownership, there would remain, 
based upon the prospects for 1900, wealth to the value of 
$77,000,000,000, or $1,000 in property for each man, 
woman, and child in the nation. 

It is evident, therefore, that if a general and universal 
divide-up of property were made it would consist in the 
Government, through the exercise of its inherent and 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 37 

sovereign powers, assuming, for the time being, absolute 
control of all property and wealth, and with the exception 
of natural monopolies, which would become national. 
State, county, and municipal possessions, making a fair, 
impartial, and judicious division of the same among all 
the people. And it is quite evident that the share of each 
individual would consist of property the value of which 
would not be far from $1,000. 

A divide-up would not be honest, American, or even 
possible unless it were made general, complete, and equi- 
table. No matter what the race or color of a person be or 
what the previous condition, if he or she is by birth or 
adoption a legal subject or citizen, such an one, in all 
fairness and justice, is entitled to an equal share. Were 
favors shown, there are many reasons why they should 
be given to those who apparently least deserve them. In 
running a race it is the swiftest-footed that are handi- 
capped. There are men who could start with nothing and 
eventually surpass in achievement others who had much 
to start with. An even division, "share and share alike" 
so far as possible, and without favor or distinction, except 
to conform to good judgment and discretion, would be the 
only practical, wise, and just method to pursue. 

Of course^ the discussion of the measure would give 
rise to many perplexing questions. All great measures 
do this. Some would oppose giving the same value to an 
infant as to an adult; others would object to giving the 
same amount to an ignorant and indifferent family with a 
flock of unpromising children as to those more worthy 
and highly cultured. Many would see in the wide range 
of property values, running from the hovel to the palace, 
apparent insurmountable difficulties in making an equal 
division of property with fairness to all. A thousand 
impossibilities would be seen by opposers. Some would 
think that a graded apportionment should apply to chil- 
dren. While it might not seem fair to include childhood 
in an equal distribution, yet by doing so twenty-one years 
would be given in which to solve those problems con- 
nected with the rights and needs of oncoming generations. 
While giving to the ignorant and indifferent an equal 
share in a divide-up would cause much to be sacrificed, yet 



38 OUB NATION'S NEED, 

the loss would be many times compensated for in the 
aroused manhood and womanhood that would result. That 
the existence of palaces and hovels would embarrass an 
equal division of property, none can deny. For years 
wealth has been tearing down and building larger, while 
poverty has been shifting as best it could. The nation 
has become a jumble of financial monstrosities. But these 
extremes represent abuses in need of correction. Men 
die every day in houses their children cannot afford to 
keep up and occupy. When properly viewed, the very 
things that seem to prohibit a divide-up are conditions 
which a division of property, and it alone, will remedy 
and cure. One of the astonishing features of our large 
towns and cities now is the great number of dwelling 
houses, intended for families of the middle class, stand- 
ing empty, while there are not enough hovels and flats and 
avenue palaces to meet the demand. If a leveling of 
wealth filled up these medium-sized but vacant houses 
and built more like them and emptied both extremes, it 
would be a vast improvement over what now exists. 

It would not only be a duty to make a thorough and 
honest distribution of property, but to see that each allot- 
ment were legally secured to the owner. If property to 
the value of $1,000 represented each person's share, this 
amount should be given to every man or woman of full 
age, to be accepted by them and subject to their absolute 
legal control. Every married couple would receive prop- 
erty to the value of $2,000 and, in addition, the value of 
$1,000 for each child in the family. Every orphan child 
would receive, through a legally authorized guadianship, 
the value of $1,000. 

Defective, helpless, incapable persons, through special 
provisions, should receive the benefit of their apportion- 
ment. What would otherwise go directly to these persons 
could be represented by substantial profit-producing in- 
vestments, and the income therefrom to be used for their 
support in such institutions as are essential to the best 
welfare and comfort of those who, through physical or 
mental defects, are rendered unfortunate. The shares of^ 
all criminals in custody should be held in trust, and when 
each has served his sentence and is set at liberty he should 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 39 

receive his portion. There is also a considerable number 
of persons who, although incapable of managing their own 
affairs to good advantage, are nevertheless harmless and 
useful members of society. The property of such persons 
could also be in the form of well-secured and paying in- 
vestments, and the income of the same, through duly 
authorized guardianships used for their support. The 
aged and infirm and invalid classes comprise a large num- 
ber in the aggregate, and the same kind of investments 
would be appropriate for them. All of these would 
absorb no little property, and such wealth as large office 
buildings and mammoth business blocks in towns and cities 
could be appropriated in this way. 

When the process of dividing-up had been completed 
and the new order of things become effective, there is no 
reason why a rapid adjustment of affairs would not follow. 
It could scarcely be called a revolution. The people would 
become so absorbed in their new environments and in the 
future that they would forget the past. The blessings of 
sunshine and rain would continue. Spring, summer, 
autumn, and winter would follow each other the same as 
now. But until some one should be dishonest or recreant 
to his duty, there would not be a destitute man, woman, 
or child in the United States — ^not one. Nor would there 
be a rich person until riches had been earned — not one. 
Every legitimate American would be worth property to the 
value of $1,000, and the possessions of every family would 
be wealth commensurate with its numbers. 

Financially all would be upon an equitable basis. None 
would be so independent as to live without labor or effort 
of some kind. STone would be dependent entirely upon 
toil for food and shelter. Those who are now rich, would 
be shorn of the power that money can buy and would find 
it necessary to become useful, and those who are now 
enslaved to capital and humiliated by poverty would be 
given what is the natural and legitimate birthright of 
every man, woman, and child born upon America's beloved 
and free soil — a visible chance to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. 



Moreover, the profit of the earth is for all. — Solomon". 

Have love. Not love alone for one. 
But man, as man, thy brother call; 

And scatter, like the circling sun, 
Thy charities on all. — Schiller. 

When the struggle assumes the form of a contest with power 
in all its subtlety or with undermining or corrupting wealth, 
as it some time may, rather than with turbulence, sedition, or 
upon aggression by the needy and desperate, it will be indis- 
pensable to employ still greater diligence; to cherish earnest- 
ness of purpose, resoluteness in conduct; to apply hard and con- 
stant blows to real abuses, rather than milk-and-water remedies, 
and encourage not only bold, free, and original thinking, but 
determined action. — Levi Woodbury. 

Vast tracts of our domain, not simply the public domain or 
frontier, but in some of our nearer States, are passing into the 
hands of wealthy foreigners. . . . This evil requires early 
attention, and that Congress should, by law, restrain the acquisi- 
tion of such tracts of land by aliens. Our policy should be 
small farms worked by men who own them. — Benjamin Harri- 
son. 

And now, wealth, learning, statesmanship, law and religion, 
as well as labor, are unceasingly seeking for settlement that 
will be in accordance with the divine law, with the greatest 
good to all ; and that will give prosperity to society, justice to 
the individual, and stability to the state. — ^H. W. Cadman, 
(Prize Essay). 

' The universal blunder of this world is in thinking that there 
are certain persons put into the world to govern and certain 
others to obey. Everybody is in the world to govern and 
everybody to obey. There are no benefactors and no beneficiar- 
ies in distinct classes. Every man is at once both benefactor 
and beneficiary. — Phillips Brooks. 



40 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 41 



CHAPTEE III. 

HOW COULD IT BE DONE? 

Would it be possible to divide up and start even? 

Yes. 

The chief reason, no doubt, why the measure has not 
been oftener discussed is because people imagine that it 
would be impossible to carry it out. But it would not be 
an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. There are other 
measures now being pressed by political parties quite as 
difficult to establish as a divide-up would be. 

A nation, in some respects, has characteristics in com- 
mon with the individual, and one of them is: it is easier 
to undergo a wholesale reform than to reform in a single 
spot. To correct a life is an easier matter than to abandon 
a habit. To adopt a sweeping, radical change is not so 
difficult as it is to uproot a single evil. Eevolutions have 
made history, while the lap of time is filled with dead re- 
forms. 

There are many reasons why it would be easier to bring 
to pass a divide-up of property among all the people thjn 
it would be to materially change, as an isolated reform, 
our financial system, to prohibit the liquor traffic, or bring 
about the public ownership of railroads and other natural 
monopolies. These things, desirable as they may be, lack 
the essential motive power. Every defeated wrong in his- 
tory shows that there was a great motive force that im- 
pelled volunteers ' to storm its forts and invade the as- 
sumed rights of its friends. Behind the proposition to 
divide up and start even are the forfeited rights of 50,- 
000,000 people. It would mean the restoration to these 
people of $50,000,000,000 in property that justly belongs 
to themx. It would mean business prosperity in the future 
to the whole country. The question would possess both 
the force of motive and the momentum of magnitude. 



42 OTIB NATIOI^'S NEED. 

It would be a political question. In its scope it would 
be local, state and national. It wonld of necessity oper- 
ate through political channels supported by a platform 
which proclaimed and advocated the principles involved. 
It is the proper mission and legitimate function of a 
political movement to embody some definite principle or 
plan of action in its platform and to submit the same to 
the people for adoption or rejection at the ballot-box. It 
is the highest privilege of citizenship to express convic- 
tions and desires regarding political policies on election 
day, and a duty, no less exalted, is to give "absolute 
acquiescence in the decisions of the majority," which Jef- 
ferson has placed as one of the fixed stars in the bright 
constellation of principles that illumine our national path- 
way. So expressed and so voted upon it would establish, 
beyond all controversy, the universally accepted but much- 
abused doctrine that this is "a government of the people, 
for the people, and by the people." 

To carry out a divide-up and start-even would require 
the election and installation into office of a majority of 
the members of our national Congress pledged to the adop- 
tion of the measure. Congress alone would have the right 
to proceed. In its official aspects it would resemble a 
civil war. Although no war would attend its operation, 
from a governmental standpoint it would be a war meas- 
ure. Except in the absence of the implements of warfare, 
the two measures are identical. 

War, in its intent and issues, "is governmental disci- 
pline to protect the national life and to secure the guar- 
anteed rights of the people." This is exactly the motive 
and intent of a divide-up and start-even. 

Men will diligently labor to invent more destructive 
implements of warfare, and it should be no less a duty 
to invent more effective implements of peace. When cor- 
poral punishment is prohibited in school, discipline con- 
tinues to rule; and when the bloodshed and wholesale de- 
struction of war shall end, it is not to be expected that 
governmental authority to exact justice among the people 
shall cease. The fact that the Constitution invests Con- 
gress with the "right to declare war" gives it the right to 
9^c|aT§ popie other pae^sure that will^ better than i^ar^ 



OUB NATION'S NEED. 43 

answer the purpose of some desirable end, although 
powder and bullets, bayonets and swords are not em- 
ployed to enforce its decrees. To deny Congress this right 
would make of war the Ultima Thule of government and 
forestall the advancement of civilization. 

It would further resemble a war measure in the per- 
formance of the task. It would require the services of 
from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 men in the various depart- 
ments connected with the work. This vast army of men 
would be under the direct jurisdiction of the Government. 
It would require that every state, every county, and every 
township, ward, or school district be organized. 

Men of sterling character, good judgment, and unswerv- 
ing integrity should be chosen to perform the task. Per- 
sons specially familiar with each branch of industry, class 
of property and commodities should inspect and adjust 
any variation from a fair and uniform estimate that might 
be found placed upon values. 

It need not be a difficult matter to select the number of 
men necessary to perform the task. Were Congress to 
order an election to be held in every voting precinct in the 
United States, to elect at least 10 per cent, of the citizens 
in each, nearly 1,500,000 men would at once be legally 
authorized to proceed with the work. 

These locally elected committees could, in turn, elect 
township, city, and county committees, and these in like 
manner could elect state and national boards. These 
various committees and boards could employ such helpers, 
either professional, expert, or clerical, as would be neces- 
sary to best perform the duties involved. In this manner 
the task could be systematically and intelligently inaugu- 
rated and thoroughly carried out. While the work would 
be monumental in proportions, it need not be difficult in 
execution. 

One of the first and important things to be done would 
be to fix the exact day and hour at which the new con- 
ditions should become binding and in force. At least one 
year from the commencement of proceedings should be al- 
lowed in which to perform the details connected with the 
ivork. 

J^ the pieantim^ buiinesg^ labor^ §n4 the various iiidus^ 



44 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

tries and enterprises might continue jnst the same as if no 
change were going to take place. Merchants should con- 
tinue to buy and sell^ manufacturers should keep the 
wheels of industry turning, the farmer plant and garner 
his crops, and the artist and artisan, the editor and the 
minister, the teacher and the servant should continue 
their various dutes. Interference with the natural 
processes of the various activities and industries might be 
so avoided that the proceedings would escape all ordinary 
observation. In the building of this new temple of lib- 
erty the sound of the hammer need not be heard. 

To insure every one absolute fairness, and in order to 
counteract any dishonesty attending the measure, the com- 
mittees might remain in force for one year following the 
division and continue to hold full martial or military 
powers. In this way all dishonesty or unjust advantages, 
either acidental or willful, could be rectified. 

A requirement of supreme importance would be to make 
an accurate, thorough, and uniform appraisement of the 
value of all the property, both personal and real, in the 
United States. Definite and uniform rules _ and regula- 
tions should apply to all sections of the country. Aside 
from local committees, specially qualified persons, in suf- 
ficient numbers to thoroughly cover the field, should travel 
from place to place to insure uniformity and fairness to 
all. Each branch of industry and each kind of merchan- 
dise should be thus inspected by men familiar with the 
line represented. 

All persons would, of course, be required, under the 
most stringent regulations, to give a full and complete 
report of all belongings. All gold and silver coin would, 
of necessity, be demanded and held by the Government 
for the time being, and only paper money used until the 
day officially set for the adoption of the new administra- 
tion. All misrepresentation and fraud should be subject 
to proper punishment. 

An important matter would be to decide what individual 
possessions would be exempt in making the appraisement. 
Of course personal clothing would not be included, nor, 
with rare exceptions, household furniture. Among those 
things which YiovldL not as a rule be considered are tools 



OUB NATION'S NEED, 45 

owned and used by carpenters and other mechanics in se- 
curing a livelihood, instruments and libraries of profes- 
sional men, farming implements and such live-stock as 
are used exclusively for individual or family purposes, 
and outfits generally which pertain to individual or family 
employment. It would, however, be necessary to place a 
reasonable limit to all such possessions and require obedi- 
ence to such rules as would best insure fairness to all. 
That the jewels and ornaments of many rich persons are 
in themselves a fortune, and that the furnishings of some 
households are of immense value, are facts not to be over- 
looked and which would require special adjustment. 

As a part of the programme, it would be required that 
new dies be made for coin, and that all gold, silver, and 
other metallic money be recoined at the mints. None of 
our present coin would be used after the division took 
place, and any coin now in use discovered after such 
division, unless it came from a foreignsland, would belong 
to the Grovernment. 

An entirely new supply of paper money would also be 
required, its use to begin simultaneously with the new 
order of things. The paper money now in use might be 
continued until the day upon which the new money should 
come into use, when the present paper money would be- 
come counterfeit, and any person trying to pass it would 
be guilty of a crime. This would entirely prevent fraud 
as far as paper money is concerned, and reduce dishon- 
esty in the use of gold, silver, and small coins to a mini- 
mum. To prevent fraud in the use of postage stamps and 
postal cards, new designs could be printed, those now in 
use to be worthless after the change took place. 

In order to facilitate the distribution of property 
among the people it could well be represented by printed 
certificates. They should be uniform and specific in char- 
acter. Those representing personal propert}^ might well 
be placed at $25 and those representing real estate at $50 
each. Upon the face of each certificate should be stated 
specifically the exact property it represented. When the 
division had been completed each person would be entitled 
to the property his certificates called for, possession to take 
effect upon the official day as named. 



46 OUB WATION'8 NEED. 

To illustrate the advantage of issuing certificates: sup- 
pose a family of four were assigned a business and a home, 
or a farm, the value of which had been placed at $3,500. 
This family would be entitled to $500 worth of certificates 
calling for their face value in some other propert}^ But 
suppose the business and home or farm were valued at 
$4,500. Then some one else would be given the surplus 
certificates and they would have a legal claim against the 
property specified upon their face. In this way the cer- 
tificates would facilitate the equalization of allotments, 
and the holders of them would be expected to protect their 
own interests after the division had been pronounced ef- 
fective. The parties holding a majority of certificates 
representing any particular property would be entitled to 
a warranty deed for the same when presented to the coun- 
ty clerk of the county in which it was located. And any 
one holding less than a majority of certificates would be 
entitled to an official first claim when presented to the 
county clerk in the same way. In the case of certificates 
representing large concerns, such as department stores or 
manufacturing plants, they could be construed as so much 
stock, according to the system now prevailing. 

Another important duty would be to enumerate and 
classify the people. For this purpose only men of known 
integrity and good judgment should be chosen. Tkeir 
duties would consist in numbering all the people within 
the nation carefully and accurately, reporting the age, sex, 
nativity, and occupation of each, and deciding whether, 
by birth or adoption, each one were entitled to a share in 
the nation's wealth. It would be required that profes- 
sional aids decide concerning those incapable of managing 
their own affairs. A uniform and reliable system should 
be adopted providing each locality with responsible guar- 
dianship over those who for any reason are incapable of 
accepting and managing their allotments. And the same 
system would apply to all children who are orphans or 
who desire guardianship. And it should be the duty of 
these committees to exclude all persons who are not genu- 
ine legal Americans. 

In the distribution of allotments, it is plainly apparent 
th^t the grea,test wisdorp. and Justice filioiiM be shoTO? iThf 



OUB NATION'S NEED. 47 

highest integrity and the best common sense would be re- 
quired to measure up to the high level of duty here im- 
perative. Those who now own a home, or a business, or 
other property should, of course, be given an option upon 
such as they possess and occupy. Those who labor in fac- 
tories or in other places where wealth is invested should 
be given an option on that to which they are devoting their 
skill, time, and energy. While special conditions, circum- 
stances, and personal adaptation should, in a measure, in- 
fluence the distribution of property, the final and supreme 
power to decide, in case of controversy, should be vested 
entirely in those charged with the division, and not left to 
the recipient. 

Aside from the stupendous magnitude of the undertak- 
ing there is nothing extraordinary about a divide-up and 
start-even. The duties involved are not at all uncommon. 
It is going on every day through orphans' courts. Such 
duties are being fulfilled constantly in settling estates, in 
the exchange of property, in collecting census statistics, 
and in assessments made for taxes and for other purposes. 
It might be claimed that once during each generation the 
property of the country is subjected to such a change. The 
entire process is susceptible of being executed in a manner 
deserving the most implicit confidence. 

It is to be observed that a divide-up simply compels a 
general average. It takes the superabundance from the 
few rich. It gives it to the many who now have little or 
nothing. A large number of families would not materially 
gain or lose. There is a large number of farmers, small 
merchants, mechanics, professional men, and those en- 
gaged in vocations where industry and economy are en- 
couraged — who escape the slavery of wage servitude on the 
one hand and the crushing effect of overgrown competition 
on the other — who possess already a fair general average 
of wealth. 

The disparity of wealth is much greater in the cities 
than in rural districts. The farmers of the country, as a 
class, would gain by the measure. It would result in the 
subdivision of many farms, especially of the "bonanza 
farms" of the West. But to do this should be a part of our 
organic law regardless of a divide-up of property^ in order 



48 OUR NATION' 8 NEED. 

to give new recruits an opportunity. There ought to be a 
limit to the amount of land that one person may own, and 
such a law will necessarily at some time force itself into 
adoption. 

A uniform rule should apply to the size and value of 
farms. When a farm should require dividing into two or 
more allotments, or perhaps two farms into three allot- 
ments by taking a portion from each, the present owners 
should be given that part supplied with buildings, while 
young men and young women should be given the unim- 
proved portion. In sparsely settled sections, where large 
tracts of land are held for speculation, it should revert to 
the governm^ent or to the state in which it is located and 
be held for future settlers. 

The most revolutionary changes would take place in the 
ownership and control of large manufacturing concerns 
and business enterprises. V/hat is nov/ a manufacturing 
plant worth $1,000,000 and employing 1,000 persons, but 
owned by a corporation consisting of a few stockholders, 
would become the property of a thousand men who do not 
now own a dollar's worth of stock, but who do all the work. 
The present stockholders would become fellow-members 
with the rest. If a large store carries a stock of $100,000 
and employs 100 clerks, these clerks would become the 
proprietors, and the present owners would be placed upon 
an equality with those now under them. 

If the former owners of factories and stores were in 
reality suited to fill official positions and manage business 
acceptably, they would, in most instances, be chosen to con- 
tinue in the capacity of managers. In most instances the 
residences of the present owners and officials of large con- 
cerns would doubtless be retained as a part of the plant, 
and under the new order of things they would become the 
"executive residence" and the residences of the chief of- 
ficials, to be occupied by them during terms of office. 

With the exception, therefore, that the management and 
profits of these large concerns would be transferred to their 
natural and legitimate owners — the workers — there would 
not be many revolutionary changes. It would be the duty 
of those employed in these large concerns, in anticipation 
of the new order of things^ to organize and elect officers 



OVB NATION '8 NEED. 49 

and make such arrangements as might be required to con- 
tinue business without any interruption. 

There is a great number of private residences in large 
towns and cities that would, under the new order of things, 
be entirely too expensive for private ownership. No private 
individual could afford to live in them. These could, with 
their chief contents, be reserved for public purposes, and 
they would serve a real need under the new conditions, as 
will be shown in a future chapter. All theaters, opera- 
houses, public halls, club-houses, large hotels, and other 
buildings used for social, educational, and amusement 
purposes would cease to be private property. As a revolu- 
tion would take place in the habits of men, the Govern- 
ment would assume ownership of all distilleries and brew- 
eries and of all materials connected with the license sys- 
tem. While land in rural districts, if unappropriated, 
wonild revert to the government or the state in which it 
were located, that in incorporated cities and towns, except 
such as would be needed for public purposes, such as post- 
offices, etc., should become the property of the munici- 
pality. 

While it should be the endeavor to make a complete 
division and give to every one at the time a proper allot- 
ment of tangible property, yet there are numerous in- 
stances where this would be difficult to carry out in a wise 
and practicable manner. For instance, there are many 
children and young people who belong to this class. To 
meet such cases a government certificate could be issued 
the same as bonds are now, to bear interest and to be pay- 
able at legal age. Public debts of all kinds now amount 
to over $2,000,000,000. This is equal to the share of over 
2,000,000 persons in a divide-up, and the Government 
could issue this amount, or even more, of such certificates 
with perfect safety. A large share of them would be re- 
deemed in land, the later appropriaton of which would 
admit of better judgment than possible at the time the 
division occurred. 

While the vast army of men elected for the purpose 
were appraising property, enumerating the people, and ar- 
ranging for the distribution of wealth, the Government 
should be coining and printing a new supply of money. 



50 OXIB NATION'S NEED. 

In the meantime a perfect financial and banking system 
shonld be adopted. Every bank, under a new and per- 
fected banking law, should be provided with new money 
sufficient to supply those within its official territory. At 
least $50 for each adult and $25 for each minor should be 
deposited in bank and officially assigned and apportioned 
to each person individually, in addition to the $1,000 
worth of property. This money should be subject to the 
check of the persons to whom it was assigned or to the 
check of their legal representatives. By this means every 
man would have in bank, subject to his check upon the ar- 
rival of the official day, the sum of $50, or $100 for him- 
self and wife and $25 extra for each of his children. 

The large increase of public ownership of natural 
monopolies would call for a corresponding supply of 
money as operating capital. To properly supply this need 
would require not less than $1,000,000,000 in cash in ad- 
dition to that given to individuals. It would be thrust 
into circulation through the medium of public enter- 
prises. By this method more than twice as much money 
would at once be in actual circulation as there is at 
present. 

As an essential contingency of a divide-up,, it would 
be incumbent upon the general Government to assume the 
full payment of all debts that might be due to foreign na- 
tions or to citizens of foreign nations. This is the only 
debt that would survive in the United States. Our entire 
foreign indebtedness, regardless of its nature, should be 
paid in full. This does not apply, however, to speculative 
investments by foreigners in this country. Our nation is 
abundantly able to pay its honest debts, and every cent 
due in foreign countries should be paid in lawful money, 
full value. 

Another contingency that would arise is to properly 
acknowledge the just claims of those advanced in years. 
All men over sixtj^-five and all women over fifty-five years 
of age should be granted a pension. We would not, except 
in a few instances, be under more obligations to the old 
than we are now, but we would begin to be honest, and 
the aged deserve a comfortable support. Besides, were aid 
extended to the old, the most of them would quit the field 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 51 

of enterprise, and this wonld greatly improve the advan- 
tages of the young. It will be a happy condition to our 
business and financial interests if it ever becomes a set- 
tled policy for men to retire after a reasonable period of 
service. By encouraging the young as new recruits, the 
aged would justly merit an assurance of life's comforts 
during their declining years, and the younger generations 
could well afford to grant them. 

It would also be just and proper that pensions be 
granted, within certain limitations, to correspond with the 
customs, habits, and past usefulness of those receiving 
them. Various considerations determine the amount of 
war pensions, and a parallel principle could, with equal 
justice, apply to pensions granted on account of political 
reforms in which no war occurred. After all, pensions 
are not so burdensome as many imagine. They are a 
tremendous factor in promoting the circulation of money. 
To a certain extent they are a direct benefit to business 
and general prosperity. 

Before the day appointed upon which the new dispensa- 
tion is to begin the entire task should be finished. The 
new conditions should be welcomed as the will of a pa- 
triotic people and as the supreme law of a sovereign na- 
tion. 

The arrival of the official day should find all prepared 
for it. Each person should know exactly what is to be 
his. No matter whether it be what is now a millionaire or 
a pauper, a belle or a washerwoman, a college professor 
or an ignorant occupant of an obscure hut, each person 
should hold in his or her possession that which calls for 
what is to be his or her legal property. The money of 
each man, woman, and child should be in the bank of his 
or her choice, and each should hold a deposit-book show- 
ing the amount. The discrepancies in values in business 
caused by depleting or increasing stock should be adjusted. 
Every person should know what his plans and purposes 
are for the future. The post-offices should have a supply 
of newly prepared postage stamps and postal cards. All 
the details of a divide-up being completed, it should be a 
time of peace on earth and ffood-will toward men. 

The day appointed is reached and passes slowly. The 



52 OVR NATION'S NEED. 

hour arrives ! The clocks herald the moment ! A new 
era dawns ! Every man^ woman, and child in the United 
States is worth a respectable home. Every mortgage is 
canceled. Every debt is forgiven. Every account-book is 
swept clean. There is no starving childhood, no neglected 
among the aged. Every man has money in the bank. 
Prosperity dawns. A new freedom is born. The long- 
prayed-for kingdom begins. Eejoicing echoes through the 
hills and over the plains, and the land is filled with glad- 
ness. The day of jubilee is at hand. 



Provide things honest in the sight of all men. — ^Paxjl. 

But right is right, since God is God; 

And right the day must win; 
To doubt would be disloyalty, 

To falter would be sin! — Fabee. 

What do gentlemen mean by coming forward and declaring 
against this Government? Why do they say that we ought 
to limit its power and destroy its capacity for blessing the 
people? Has philosophy suggested, has experience taught, that 
such a government ought not to be intrusted with everything 
necessary for the good of society? . . . when, in short, you 
have rendered your system as perfect as human forms can be 
— you must place confidence and you must give power. — 
Alexander Hamilton. 

Happy is that country, and only that country, where the 
laws are not only just and equal, but supreme and irresistible, 
where selfish interests and disorderly passions are curbed by 
an arm to which they must submit. — Joseph Hopkinson. 

Let us seek liberty and peace under the law, and, following 
the pathway of our fathers, preserve the great legacy they have 
committed to our keeping. — James A. Garfield. 

It would seem to be a self-evident proposition that the price 
of land, all other things being equal, is governed by the popu- 
lation on the land, or near it. That is what makes property in 
cities so valuable. It naturally follows from this that where 
population increases rapidly prices should similarly advance. 
And within certain limitations I believe this will be found the 
case. — Ex-President Benjamin Harrison. 

There is much to be said in favor of the right of the creator 
of just wealth to leave it to whom he pleases, and much more 
for its limitation. It is impossible to limit the natural gifts or 
disabilities with which we are born, but it might be possible, 
and without injustice, to restrict each one's individual share 
of the world's wealth. — H. W. Cadman ($1,000 Prize Essay in 
Cfiristian Unity ) . 

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society, 
and any departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under 
the suspicion of being no policy at all. — Burke. 



54 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 55 



CHAPTER IV. 

WOULD IT BE HOIiTEST TO DIVIDE UP? 

The very instant the question of dividing the wealth 
of the nation among all the people enters the mind, it is 
confronted with the inquiry, Would it be honest ? Were it 
to become an issue in politics it wonld be heroically as- 
sailed as infamy and repndiation. Perhaps nothing has 
been more vehemently opposed than a divide-np would be. 
Men would cry "fraud V^ "repudiation !" "rogues !" 
"thieves V and pollute the air with opprobrium. But men 
have always acted thus. The rich would proclaim "the 
divine rights of ownership" and shout "thou shalt not 
steal" until they were hoarse. But bold indictments have 
always been hurled at progressive reform. And at no 
time will men so strain at a gnat and swallow a camel as 
when dealing out precepts upon honesty for their fellows 
while practicing it to suit themselves. 

Genuine honesty is not only a precious, but a pure 
jewel. It admits of no adulteration. It cannot be imi- 
tated. It is the basic principle of civilization. It is the 
aim and the end of law. "Thou shalt not steal" is an 
epitome of all the statute books of Christendom. 

It is dishonest for one man to wilfully rob another of 
the value of one cent. He who commits such an act is a 
thief. Ko man or number of men, under the guise of any 
pretext whatever, can claim the right to take the property 
of another and appropriate it as their own. Lazarus, as 
we understand the principles of honesty, had no right to 
steal the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table; and 
no man, although he may be working long hours at starva- 
tion wages for the most crushing and soulless corporation, 
can claim the right to swerve from the most rigid adher- 
ence to the highest standards of integrity. No matter how 
beneficent, how desirable, or how loudly vaunted a general 



56 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

divide-up might be, such a measure must be condemned 
unless it be honest. That which costs honor is unworthy 
the price, no matter what blessings it may bestow. 

Moreover, honesty is an omnipotent principle. It^can- 
not be contracted to a narrow compass. It has a mission 
of its own; and while all must obey its precepts, it, in re- 
turn, must reign universal. It is no respecter of persons. 
It is the arbiter between right and wrong. "Thou shalt 
not steal'^ is only a part of its legal code. Let us learn 
that honesty strikes deep and reaches afar. Genuine hon- 
esty does not sanction that which is unless it harmonizes 
with that which ought to be. Eeal honesty never brands 
patriotic effort as repudiation and infamy while Just resti- 
tution, dead and forgotten, slumbers in its grave. 

Our Grovernment was founded and is based upon these 
broader and deeper principles of honesty. It was the in- 
tent of our fathers to insure to all the people equality be- 
fore the law and absolute liberty in the legitimate pursuits 
of life. In admitting that this is a government "of the 
people, for the people, and by the people,^^ we must also 
admit that the people rule^ and that their interests in the 
form of "a more perfect union^' are the legitimate and 
highest aim of governmental action. While the people as 
individuals make the laws, the people as a collective unit 
are the law itself. The Constitution, sacred as it is, is 
their instrument. "We, the people,^^ are the sovereign, 
the supreme power, the ruling force. Thus constituted 
and empowered, it is the sacred duty and should be the 
honest purpose of the people to go forth from one degree 
of progress to another until every home, so far as patriotic 
devotion and just laws can favor, has been made happy 
and every life has been assured its proper reward. 

We have not yet been sufficiently schooled to be able to 
judge what is exactly honest and what is not regarding 
the ownership of property in a free country like ours. Our 
Government is not a century and a quarter old. Time 
enough has not yet elapsed to learn what laws are best in 
relation to property. The nation is too young, even now, 
to establish immutable statutes regarding individual pos- 
sessions. These questions are a work that requires not 
only profound wisdom, but time and lessons of experience. 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 57 

If laws have existed which failed to protect the weak 
from the strong and the good from the bad, and, in con- 
sequence, unnatural diversities of wealth have resulted 
that are manifestly unjust and vicious to the common 
good, the only honest alternative is to remove these con- 
ditions by a peaceful and equitable adjustment and sup- 
plant the inefficient laws by those that will prevent, as far 
as possible, vicious and unfair conditions from occurring 
in the future. The most sincere statesmen sometimes pass 
unwise laws, and what is a wholesome law at one time 
may soon become a veritable loophole for the adroit ma- 
nipulator. It is not only dishonesty, but political imbecil- 
ity, to perpetuate laws that have proved impracticable or 
that have ceased to be useful and have become a shield for 
the avaricious, simply because they have come down to us 
from the past. 

And genuine honesty would go a step further : it would, 
as far as possible, correct conditions resulting from the 
existence of a bad law. The same facts would apply to the 
lack of any laws at all where they should have been pro- 
vided, and also to customs and practices in business and 
enterprise which are inherently wrong, but which have 
been sanctioned by popular endurance. 

When an unjust condition exists it is an evidence that a 
wrong has been committed, and honesty demands that 
every wrong, if possible, be corrected. To claim that gov- 
ernment has no right to correct accumulated injustice, in- 
cluding the unjust possession of wealth, is to deny it the 
privilege of correcting its own mistakes and shortcomings. 
It at once makes of the people not masters of the present, 
but slaves of the past. 

Common honesty and national interests demand not 
only radical and organic changes now, but will in the 
future, no doubt, demand many changes in our funda- 
mental laws and in our financial and industrial systems 
before all the "unalienable rights" of posterity are so ex- 
pressed and established as to defy the natural and capri- 
cious events of time. 

For several decades the desire iG grow rich has been 
almost an outlaw in our country. Perhaps the world has 
never witnessed such an unbridled stampede for the goal 



58 0^772 NATION' 8 NBED. 

of gain. Our growth of wealth since the War of the Re- 
bellion has been remarkable and without a parallel. The 
war opened up a new financial era in our country. During 
the past census decade the wealth of the United States 
increased over $20,000^000^000. We are growing rich at 
the rate of over $2,000,000,000 annually, or over $5,000,- 
000 for every day in the year. But in the distribution of 
this v/ealth Fortune has been as wild and reckless as 
though she were to harness the winds to scatter her treas- 
ures. 

Admitting the most liberal construction to be placed 
upon present conditions, the fact remains that they are ac- 
cursedly wrong. The great middle class, which has made 
American history conspicuously progressive and noble, is 
not only being shadowed, but is threatened with extinction. 
Says the editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger: "Will 
it go on until the independent middle class, on which the 
stability of the country depends, is all wiped out, and the 
population consists only of a few employers and a great 
army of employed, with its inevitable and distressful fol- 
lowing of unemployed ?'' 

The false theory that "whatever is is right'' seems to 
condone these unnatural conditions and the unjust freaks 
of fortune which are sure to follow. The fact that "pos- 
session is nine points of the law,'' although it lacks ten 
points of being honest, is sufficient to subdue legions of 
men into submission to tryanny even of the most despotic 
kind. Human nature is so constructed that man never 
bears and forbears so patiently as when he is himself the 
victim. Slavery seldom visibly deplores its misery or shows 
the essential courage to win its ov/n freedom. 

It is only by long and intimate association that we have 
become tolerant of conditions as they to-day exist. Sup- 
pose our forefathers, instead of forming ^ republic, had 
established a communism in the United States, and instead 
of individual possession the wealth of the nation had been 
held in common until the present time. And suppose the 
people, weary of the monotony of communistic routine, 
had decided to divide all property among the people and 
establish individual ownership; that laws had been passed 
to this effect and men appointed to carry them out by; 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 59 

dividing the land, and houses, and goods, and money 
among the people with the intention of establishing a re- 
public. And suppose, after numbering the people and esti- 
mating the wealth, it were found that there was $1,000 
worth of property for each man, woman, and child. Now 
suppose these men chosen to divide the property, instead 
of dealing out pro rata were to give $100,000,000 worth 
to each of several men, $50,000,000 each to a larger num- 
ber, from $1,000,000 to $40,000,000 each to several thou- 
sand, and then amuse themselves by distributing indefinite 
amounts until about one-half of the people had been sup- 
plied with something, and were to entirely ignore one- 
half of the families of the nation, leaving millions of 
people in poverty — giving fine mansions to men who never 
built them, railroads to men who never worked a day, coal 
mines to men who never saw one, oil fields to men who 
never soiled their hands, immense factories to men who 
never handled a tool, millions in mortgages to men who 
never drove a nail or followed a plow, while the mechanics, 
the miners, and the laborers who have built the houses, 
constructed the railroads, developed the mines, sped the 
wheels of industry, and turned the hills and valleys into 
harvest fields were fated with ignoble poverty and bur- 
dened with debt — doomed to a slavery from which to 
aspire were to be branded an anarchist and in which to 
falter or fail were to be stigmatized as a scapegoat. Who 
would accept such a division of property as honest? A 
righteous indignation would resent the insult. Yet this 
condition exists to-day, and it has been brought about by 
systems of law, by customs of business, by tolerated habits 
of society, and almost as systematically as though it had 
occurred under the direct control of governmental author- 
ity. Its insidious growth and its subtile nature when 
established make it endurable. 

That the lives of some men are more comprehending 
and useful than the lives of other men, and that they de- 
serve and actually require more of this world's goods, is a 
self-evident fact. There are degrees of civilization and of 
culture widely apart. There is a vast difference between 
the meager needs of a vast multitude low down in the 
scale of life and the innumerable needs of those who have 



60 OUB NATION'S NEED, 

climbed higher in civilization. There are manj factors 
which enter into labor, and business, and social life which 
forbid a general level. But these differences should be 
met by compensation rather than by property. A divide- 
up would not level the compensation of men, as we shall 
see further on. Those who tower above their fellows in in- 
tellect, in genius, in skill, and in abilities would then have 
a vantage-ground they do not now possess. Fame, and 
honor, and competency would be more easily reached, and 
the present depressing struggle for bread would cease. 
Genuine promotion is that which comes through the ap- 
preciation of our fellow-men, and the power to promote 
and elevate on the part of the people would be immensely 
multiplied. The general level would be raised to its high- 
est, and to climb from this level would have a meaning 
and bestow an honor and a reward it now sadly lacks. 

But there is a more concrete reason why a divide-up and 
a start-even would be honest — because the people them- 
selves, and not the property, are the real basis of wealth 
and value. It is the current impression, quite universal, 
that land, and houses, and goods, and machinery, and 
stock, and material things measure the wealth of the na- 
tion. This is an erroneous idea. Before land is occupied 
or used, either actually or prospectively, it has no value. 
As soon, however, as it begins to serve the purpose of 
civilized man it becomes worth something. As the people 
multiply, and improve, and replenish a section of country, 
in a corresponding manner values increase. When for any 
reason people decrease or lose interest and houses and 
farms are vacated, values decline; and when a country 
ceases to be the abode of mankind or to serve its purposes 
it no longer has a value. It is the people, therefore, that 
give value to property, and it is their intelligence and so- 
cial qualities — their civilization — which regulate the gen- 
eral level of that value. 

If the population of the United States were to decrease 
one-half, values of property would doubtless decrease ac- 
cordingly. But if one-half the buildings were to be 
destroyed by fire and no lives lost, the money value of the 
nation would not correspondingly suffer. 

If a farmer settles upon a tract of land in an unoc- 



OUR N'ATION'S NEED. 61 

cupied section of the country, what was before a worthless 
piece of ground becomes a farm with an intrinsic value at 
once. If, at the same time, a tract of land adjoining the 
farm is laid out for a prospective town, it at once becomes 
of far greater value than the farm. If a thousand fam- 
ilies settle upon the town site and build homes, and stores, 
and schools, and churches, and public improvements, and 
factories, and develop society, the land upon which the 
town is built will become worth not far from a thousand 
times as much as the farm. This law holds good whether 
a few persons or many own the property. If this farmer 
and those who compose the town are of a low order of 
civilization, intrinsic values will be correspondingly low; 
if they are highly cultured and thrifty, property values 
will be correspondingly greater. And should it be discov- 
ered that the location was so unhealthy that all the people 
must either leave or perish, and on this account all the in- 
habitants should migrate, no matter how grand and costly 
the improvements might have been, both the town and the 
farm would be worthless. 

The principle that values center in the people rather 
than in material things is well illustrated in cases of fire 
and flood. If no lives are lost, intrinsic values do not 
permanently suffer. When over 17,000 buildings were 
burned at one time in Chicago, and when the heart of Bos- 
ton was reduced to ashes, the conflagrations were consid- 
ered great financial calamities. Yet both of these cities 
are far more magnificent and valuable to-day than they 
would have been if the fires had not occurred. 

There are those who believe that if the American peo- 
ple, with their present modern ideas, inventive genius, 
and industry, could be transported back to the primal for- 
ests, as in pilgrim days, and allowed to begin over again, 
it would be a real blessing, as the new cities, and towns, 
and homes, and improvements that would rapidly develop 
would surpass in beauty and value those we now have. 

Were it to be discovered that the planet Mars is a veri- 
table unoccupied Garden of Eden, with mountains of pure 
gold, rivers flowing in beds of silver, and a climate that 
prohibited disease, it would be valueless. But should 
aerial navigation be so perfected that mankind could be 



62 OUR NATION'S NEED 

transported to its enchanting shores, its wealth would at 
once become a tangible reality. 

Intrinsic value must always have its basis in the people. 
The laws which grow out of this principle are inexorable. 
Property as a representative of value is only the visible 
expression of human life and character. Without these 
there can be no valuation whatever to property. It is the 
people and the civilization which they possess that give 
worth to wealth, and not property that gives wealth to the 
people, as we so easily imagine. 

The effect that civilization has upon the value of prop- 
erty is shov/n by the increase of per capita values. The 
per capita wealth of our nation has more than doubled in 
fifty years. This is due to the fact that men and their 
needs have increased. The vision has enlarged and the 
means to gratify these multiplied needs have improved. 
In other words, civilizing forces have doubled. What were 
luxuries once and enjoyed by the few are now common 
necessities. The desires, the ambitions, the "univeri?al 
horizon'' of all, both rich and poor, have been immensely 
extended. 

Therefore, while the wealth of the nation is legally very 
largely in the hands of the few, the real factor of wealth, 
that which causes it to be wealth, is universally diffused. 
He who owns more houses, or farms, or goods than he oc- 
cupies or can use for his own purpose has in his possession 
that which depends for its value upon the life and char- 
acter of his neighbors. And every family of intelligence 
and character, even if it has no legal claim to a single 
dollar, represents a value not far from $1,000 for each of 
its members ; and there is a value to property somewhere, 
in some form, which is dependent upon the->existence of 
this particular family. This value may radiate in a 
thousand directions, but it is nevertheless real. These are 
concrete facts that admit of no denial. The capitalist is, 
of necessity, not so much a financier as he is the manipu- 
lator of not only the brain and brawn, but of the life and 
character of his fellow-men. 

To divide up would not be instituting an unnatural or 
unjust condition, but simply restoring value to the people. 
It would be giving to each, as nearly as possible^ what al- 



OVB NATION'S NEED. 63 

ready belongs to him. It would be in obedience to a law 
concerning property and life as exact and immutable as 
are the laws which guide the stars through the heavens. 

Many would doubtless question the legality of a divide- 
up of property. The measure would conflict with so much 
that is regarded as fixed law, both written and unwritten, 
that it would be looked upon by many as outlawry in its 
worst form, while some would regard it as anarchy pure 
and simple. It is to be remembered, however, that the 
stability of our nation does not rest upon the permanency 
of laws and customs, but upon the power behind those 
laws and customs — ^upon the people who make them. 

What decides the legality of a measure? The laws re- 
lating to the measure in force at the particular time. And 
few things are more subject to change than laws. One of 
the chief functions of a government is to make and un- 
make laws. In the two houses of Congress the various 
states employ over 400 men to unmake old and useless 
laws and enact new ones to take their places. In the 
various states thousands of men are empowered with a 
similar duty. To these might be added the law-makers of 
counties, cities, and towns, swelling the number to a great 
army. Perhaps nothing needs changing so often as law. 
In the settlement of our country vast areas of land have 
become territories, and in turn these territories have be- 
come states; rural districts have become towns and towns 
have grown into cities ; cow-paths have become roads, roads 
have become streets, and these streets have become great 
thoroughfares freighted with commerce and penetrated 
by railroads and trolley lines. The new conditions de- 
mand new laws. Statutes regarding the stage-coach will 
not apply to the express train running sixty miles an hour. 
As improved methods demand new laws to regulate them, 
so it is that new conditions in the deeper and more organic 
structure of our social and industrial life call for a change 
in laws that are more fixed and fundamental in their 
nature. 

What was legal yesterday may be illegal to-day, and 
what is illegal to-day may be lawful to-morrow. Statutes, 
while they exist, are paramount, but they hold no dominion 
over political policies. In courts of ;justice law, as ea- 



64 OTTB NATION'S NEED. 

grafted -apon the statute-books, is supreme dictator, to be 
obeyed to the letter, but in the operation of a political 
policy it is simply as clay in the hands of the potter, to be 
changed and fashioned at will. 

A divide-up carried out through orderly processes would 
not be anarcliy, but exactly the opposite. The word anarchy 
has been so brandished against political efforts during 
recent years that a true conception of the term no longer 
exists. Denouncing all innovations as "anarchy^' has be- 
come the pet growl of the financial lion whenever his lair 
is disturbed. Anarchy consists in the utter disregard of 
government. To oppose any law or condition and strive 
toward something better is not anarchy. 

The progress of the world depends to no small degree 
upon governmental and social progress. Those who have 
opposed obsolete and antiquated laws and customs in the 
past might well be remembered as among the v/orld^s great- 
est heroes. Those who have brought justice and progress 
through the adoption of new laws and new customs may 
well be considered as the world^s greatest benefactors. 
Law, in its normal exercise, is subject to development and 
growth. The real anarchist is not he who struggles to 
promote the natural evolution of law, but the man who 
champions a bad law because he profits by it and he who 
antagonizes the advent of new laws because, as with the 
Ephesian silversmiths, they threaten his financial interests. 

There are some who might think a divide-up would be 
unconstitutional and therefore dishonest. 

The Constitution of the United States says : "'^or shall 
private property be taken for public use without just com- 
pensation.^^ During slavery human bodies were private 
property, protected as such to the owner by the Consti- 
tution and by the Supreme Court. It was claimed that 
the slaves were worth $1,000,000,000 immediately before 
the war. But they were all set at liberty without compen- 
sation to the owners, and the clause in the Constitution re- 
garding slavery has for a generation been a dead letter. 

The object of the Constitution is "to establish justice'* 
If in the course of human events it becomes necessary, in 
order *^to establish justice," to divide up and start even 
and cancel all debts, would it then be dishonest to do it ? 



OVR NATION'S NEED. 65 

The object of the Constitution is "to secure domestic 
tranquillity f' If a division of property among all the 
people is required "to insure domestic tranquillity/' and 
if the measure would bring plenty and contentment to 
legions of American firesides, would it not be honest to 
adopt it? 

The object of the Constitution is "to provide for the 
common defense.'" If the wisest statesmen, from Moses to 
the present time, acknowledged that the ownership of prop- 
erty is the best guarantee of the "common defense" and 
if a divide-up will save our nation from impending de- 
struction, toward which thousands believe it is hastening, 
and insure peace, safety, and the establishment of a more 
patriotic and devoted spirit, is it not only honesty^ but 
wise statesmanship, to bring it to pass? 

The object of the Constitution is "to promote the gen- 
eral welfare.'' If "the general welfare'^ of the people has 
been overwhelmed by selfish ambition and a divide-up will 
bring back to the people the legitimate relations of citi- 
zenship, would it not be honest to secure the benefit of it ? 

The object of the Constitution is ''to secure the blessings 
cf liberty to ourselves and our posterity."' If it be true 
that liberty is becoming a misnomer and that slavery of a 
most hopeless sort is taking its place, and that a divide-up 
and start-even is the quickest, the surest, and the best 
remedy to employ, do we not owe it to ourselves, our 
homes, our children, and our posterity to demand that it 
be applied? 

Are we perpetuating the object and provisions of the 
Constitution, either in spirit or letter, when we neglect to 
adopt such measures as will best insure peace, justice, and 
success to all classes of citizens ? 

The Declaration of Independence is a herald in favor 
of governmental progress. It proclaims sentiments in full 
sympathy with the principles of a divide-up and start- 
even. It says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: 
that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by 
their Creator with certain unalienable rights; and among 
these are life, liberty, and ihe pursuit of happiness. That 
to secure these rights governments are instituted among 
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the 



66 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

governed; that whenever any form of government becomes 
destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to 
alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, 
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing 
its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely 
to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, 
will dictate that governments long established should not 
be changed for light and transient causes; and accord- 
ingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more 
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right 
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are ac- 
customed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpa- 
tions, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design 
to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, 
it is their duty, to throw off such government and to pro- 
vide new guards for their future security/^ 

This is, perhaps, the boldest statement in favor of politi- 
cal reform ever written. And the principles involved are 
opportune to-day. It is a matter of little difference 
whether the injuries and usurpations come from a British 
king or from concentrated wealth, or whether it be thir- 
teen struggling colonies, with 3,000,000 pilgrims, plead- 
ing for liberty, or from forty-five states and nearly four- 
score millions of freemen pleading for justice. 

Eegarding the power of the people over the Constitu- 
tion, Hon. James G. Blaine said: ^'The American people 
have rights which are anterior to and wholly independent 
of the Constitution, and I affirm, moreover, that while that 
precious instrument will continue to be, God grant for 
these many generations, the rule of our civil administra- 
tion, yet that over it and under it and outside of it and 
above it there is engraven on the hearts of this people that 
God-given right, that great precept of nature, ^Save thy- 
self !^ " 

The words of Lincoln also are fitting here. In one of 
his great speeches, referring to those who drafted our 
Declaration of Independence, he said: "They grasped 
not only the whole race of men then living, but they 
reached forward and seized upon the furthest posterity. 
They erected a beacon to guide their children and chil- 
dren's children and the countless myriads who should in- 



OUR NATION ^8 NEED. 67 

habit tHe earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they 
were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed ty- 
rants, and so they established these great self-evident 
truths, that when in the distant future some men, some 
faction, some interest should set up the doctrine that none 
but rich men, or none but white men, or none but Anglo- 
Saxon white men were entitled to *^life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness,^ their posterity might look up again 
to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to 
renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth, 
and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian 
virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that 
ho man should thereafter dare to limit and circumscribe 
the principles on which the temple of liberty was being 
built." 

Moreover, honesty is not simply a negative, hut a posi- 
tive virtue. It demands service rather than prohibits ac- 
tion. It is consecrated to a mission. Unwearied and un- 
dismayed, it is ever enlisted in a righteous warfare. It is 
a part of its. mission to expose and to bring to naught all 
mockeries and travesties that are wont to wear its robes. 
Genuine honesty would correct every wrong, level every 
mountain of ill-gotten wealth, smite every vicious law, and 
establish justice and equity everywhere. 

The claims of honesty are not met by simply establish- 
ins^ the justice of a divide-up of property and the cancella- 
tion of debts. The question that unfettered honesty 
asks is : 

''Would it he honest not to divide up and start even?" 

A fact in need of developing is that the- wrongs involved 
in existing extremes of wealth and poverty cannot all be 
charged against the rich. These wrongs are the fault of 
both classes. There is a righteous medium from which the 
poor as well as the rich have wandered. 

We all condemn the greedy boy who ate not only his own 
orange, but captured the candy of his little brother. But 
if the young brother willingly submitted and sought some 
obscure corner to devour a dry crust, he was not altogether 
free from fault. The baby spirit in one child will awaken 
the bully in another. The fear manifested by sheep will 
arouse the savage in a dog. There is a pliant demeanor 
which invites oppression. 



68 OTTR NATION ^8 NEED. 

So it is that unwarranted willingness to submit and 
serve on the part of the masses will create a corresponding 
disposition to oppress and to profit among the more ag- 
gressive and ambitious. The plutocrat is charged with op- 
pressing the poor and turning men into tramps. It is 
equally true that the indifference and apathy of the poor 
make the plutocrat possible. Inequalities in wealth are as 
much due to the careless forfeiture of inherent rights by 
the many as they are to inordinate ambition among the 
few. He who sells his birthright is as guilty as the one 
that buys it. 

We all abhor and condemn that despotism, which, en- 
amored of ambition and lust, crushes the multitude into 
obscurity and despair. Yet only less in degree is the guilt 
of the multitude in allowing its inherited and natural 
rights, its gifts of talent and energy, its hopes and desires, 
its life, its all to be wasted as a sacrifice in such unholy 
worship. While the one enkindles and fans the fires of 
oppression and tyranny the other offers itself as fuel to 
the flames. From the beginning the sin of the one has 
been to make the earth a life-consuming perdition ; the sin 
of the other has been a willingness to make this perdition 
possible. 

Mankind needs to culti^^^te self-respect. To properly 
appreciate one's self is the basic principle of the Golden 
Eule. "Thy neighbor as thyself' places self as a unit of 
measure — the divine standard — of love and law. To for- 
get or neglect self is to lose or lower the standard by which 
we are to regard others. He who loses self-respect is apt to 
forfeit the respect of his fellows. A well-poised self-re- 
spect is a paramount need of the times. He who has no 
regard for others is not without guilt, but he who respects 
not himself insults his Creator. "Self-preservation is the 
first law of nature'' and self-respect is the first law of God. 

Were every one to become possessed of the God-intended 
self-respect and love his neighbor accordingly, a divide-up 
would not only appear honest and proper, but it would at 
once stand forth as the overshadowing issue throughout 
all Christendom. 

Were the ministering evangels of divine truth to go out 
among the people and fearlessly flood every fireside with 



OTIR NATION* 8 NEED. 69 

its holy light, the adoption and execution of an equitable 
distribution of property would soon ensue. "Go sell all 
that thou hast and give to the poor" was a divine charge. 
For eighteen centuries it has been taught that men should 
be willing to obey the command. The time has come for 
the willingness to ripen into fruit and become direct and 
specific action. 

To divide up and start even furnishes the only honest 
ground for compromise between the rich and poor, the em- 
ployers and the employed, the educated and the ignorant, 
the strong and the weak, the prosperous and the un- 
fortunate, the old and the young, "the classes and the 
masses.^^ For the one side to grant less ignores the brother- 
hood of man ; for the other side to demand less denies the 
fatherhood of the Creator. It moreover provides the only 
humane way in which to utilize, to the best advantage, the 
fertile valleys and productive hills, the inexhaustible mines 
and plenteous harvests, the busy industries and tireless 
commerce, the boundless resources, the skill of hand and 
genius of brain, and the unlimited possibilities of our in- 
comparable and beloved country. To admit that a divide- 
up and start-even would be a blessing to the people, and 
at the same time claim that it would not be honest to adopt 
it, is equal to declaring that the Golden Eule is a wise 
precept, but that it would not be fair to put it into prac- 
tice. 

But the honesty of a divide-up and start-even, if exi- 
gencies demand its adoption, is not open to denial. The 
honesty of the measure was established over thirty cen- 
turies ago. It was then ordained of God and sanctioned 
by divine approval. 

It to-day occupies a conspicuous place in Holy Writ. 
No doctrine, no command, no teaching in the entire Bible 
is more directly from God, more specific, or more fully de- 
tailed than this. Explicit directions were given ^ as to how 
a division of property was to be made, who were to do it, 
and how often it was to be done. As a law it has never 
been abrogated. As a principle its honesty and fairness 
cannot be honorably or safely assailed. 

That times have changed in thirty centuries is not here 
denied. That a new dispensation has intervened is entire- 



70 OUn NATION'S NEED, 

ly conceded. But honesty and truth are eternal and re- 
main the same. When Love was enthroned it was not in- 
tended that Law should die. "Love is the fulfilling of the 
^ law.^^ The Golden Eule is simply the "Law and the 
Prophets" in a new garb. Through all the evolutions of 
time human nature and human greed still survive. There 
is no proof that either time, or changes, or the added 
cycles of events have rendered a divide-up of property 
among the people a useless and impracticable measure in 
the affairs of men. The world may grow too good to need 
the adoption of the measure ; may it never grow too bad to 
profit by it. To fail to even consider it in the government 
of a country inhabited by a free and enlightened people is 
to ignore the teachings of divine truth. Not even to 
think of it in considering the best welfare of a great re- 
public where extremes of wealth and poverty are so pro- 
nounced as to threaten the very foundations of the govern- 
ment is a clear case of forgetting God. 

Then let us conclude that a divide-up and start-even 
would be honest with a Christian and patriotic spirit. For 
who can claim by rightful inheritance the natural re- 
sources of the nation more than those who make these re- 
sources valuable — the people? Who can claim the products 
and profits of the soil more than those who plow, and plant, 
and cultivate, and reap? Who can claim the wealth and 
increase of toil more than those who harden their hands 
in mine and mill? To whom should money come more 
easily, or who should be more independent or more certain 
of abiding success than the toiling millions who, in high 
and humble effort, make property valuable by their lives 
I and character, and make that value profitable and precious 
b}'' patriotic devotion around the American fireside? 

In the temple of justice, before the tribunal of honesty, 
let it be proclaimed that America belongs to her chosen 
subjects, to her sons and daughters and adopted citizens. 
That her wealth belongs to those who have served her 
well and made her rich and great; to the fathers and 
mothers who have builded her homes and protected her 
children; to those in humble life who have patiently 
earned what is hers and have made her what she is; to 
those whose gifts and genius have made her a marvel of 



OUR NATION'S NEED. Vl 

greatness and a chief glory among the nations of the 
earth; to those who have lived and labored to establish 
and make permanent liberty, virtue, and peace in the 
land. 

These are the heirs and joint heirs to our national in- 
heritance. They have richly earned it and honestly de- 
clared it to be theirs. 



"And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among 
your families." 

What might be done? This might be done. 
And more than this, my suffering brother — 

More than the tongue 

Ever said or sung, 
If men were wise and loved each other. — Mackay. 

It was from Judea that there arose the most persistent pro- 
tests against inequality and the most ardent aspirations after 
justice that have ever raised humanity out of the actual into 
the ideal. We feel the effects still. Thence has come the 
leaven of revolution which still moves the world. Job saw evil 
triumphant and yet believed in justice. 

Israel's prophets, while thundering against inequality, an- 
nounced the good time coming. — emile de Laveleye. 

The sacred right of property may become a menace to hu- 
manity as great as the menace of the divine right of kings to 
political liberty. — George D. Hereon. 

All systems of society which favor the accumulation of 
capital in a few hands; which oust the masses from the soil 
which their forefathers possessed of old; which reduce them to 
the state of serfs and day laborers, living on wages and alms; 
which crush down with debt and in any wise degrade and 
enslave them and deny them a permanent stake in the Common- 
wealth, are contrary to the kingdom of God. — Charles Kings- 
ley. 

The strength of a nation, humanly speaking, consists not in 
its population, or wealth, or knowledge, or in any other such 
heartless and merely scientific elements, but in the number of 
proprietors. Such, too, according to the most learned and wisest 
of historians, was the opinion of antiquity. All ancient legis- 
lators, and above all Moses, rested the result of their ordinances 
for virtue, civil order, and good manners on securing landed 
property, or at least the hereditary possession of land, to the 
greatest possible number of citizens. — Charles J. Habs. 



n 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 73 



S^ CHAPTER V. 

IT HAS BEEN" DONE. 

In" its chief characteristics, a general divide-up of the 
wealth of the United States would not be a new and un- 
tried experience in the world. 

When the children of Israel, led by Joshua and num- 
bering over 2,000,000 people, crossed the Jordan into 
Canaan, God had already commanded them, through the 
great law-giver, Moses, to divide their land among all the 
families. Men of character, representing every tribe, were 
chosen to make the divisions, and in due time every 
family of every tribe was given its share in the allotment. 
"As the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel 
did; and they divided the land,^' 

Kot only was the land divided between them at the 
start, each family receiving about twenty acres, but a 
redivision was ordered to be made every fiftieth year. "In 
the year of jubilee the field shall return unto him of whom 
it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of land 
did belong.'^ During the year of jubilee all lands which 
had been alienated, with certain exceptions, were returned 
to the families of those to whom they had been allotted in 
the original distribution, and all bondmen of Hebrew 
blood were liberated. 

In addition to the divide-up of land, which took place 
every fiftieth year, all debts were remitted and released 
every seven years. "At the end of every seven years thou 
shalt make a release." "And this is the manner of the 
release: every creditor that lendeth aught unto his neigh- 
bor shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbor 
or his brother, because it is called the Lord^s release." 

As in all divine commands, the poor were especially 
provided for in the l^ws which God gave to rule HiQ 



74 OUR NATION'S NEED, 

favored people. ^^If there be among you a poor man of 
one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in the land 
which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thon shalt not harden 
thy heart nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother." 
"But thou shalt open thy hand wide unto him, and thou 
shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which 
he wanteth." ^^Beware that there be not a thought in 
thy wicked heart, saying. The seventh year, the year of 
release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor 
broth and thou givest him naught ; and he cry unto the 
Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee." "Thou shalt 
surely give him, and thy heart shall not be grieved when 
thou givest unto him ; because that for this thing the Lord 
thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that 
thou puttest thy hand unto." "For the poor shall never 
cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, 
Thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy brother, to thy 
poor, and to thy needy in the land." During these times 
no one, excepting under special circumstances, could give 
a permanent title-deed to property, as the Lord had com- 
manded; "The land shall not be sold forever, for the 
land is mine." 

The claim is made by some writers that the release of 
debts every seven years, as commanded by the Lord to 
Israel (Deut. xv.), did not mean the entire obliteration 
of debts, but simply that no interest should be demanded 
and that the debts should not be collected during the 
seventh year. There are no conclusive reasons for this 
theory. On the contrary, the object of the release and 
the entire system of equality of which it was to form a 
part imply that it was a com^plete and universal oblitera- 
tion of debts. Even those who claim that the release 
every seven years was only partial admit that the pro- 
gramme of the jubilee at the fiftieth year included the 
obliteration of all debts as well as a redivision of the 
land. The jubilee was a veritable divide-up and start- 
even, including the cancellation of all debts (Lev. xxv.). 
In its application the family and family traditions were, 
as far as possible, maintained; but the word "inheritance" 
did not necessarily imply legal transmission from parents 
to childreji m ¥§ imderstand it to-day, It iiicluded th^ 



OUR NATION '8 NEED. 75 

donation of property to those who had nothing, yet whose 
citizenship entitled them to an allotment. 

It is to be remembered that while these commands were 
given directly from Grod to His chosen race, they were 
political rather than religious in their nature and applica- 
tion. Says Dr. Smith in his "Bible Dictionary:" "The 
jubilee is more immediately connected with the body 
politic, and it was only as a member of the state that 
each person concerned could participate in its provisions. 
It was not distinguished by any prescribed religious ob- 
servances peculiar to itself, like the rites of the Sabbath 
da^ and of the sabbatical month. As far as legislation 
could go, its provisions tended to restore that equality in 
outward circumstances that was instituted in the first 
settlement of the land by Joshua. The design of the 
law was chiefly to ^naintain, and at proper intervals re- 
store, a just and proper equilibrium in the various fami- 
lies and tribes. It was to prevent the growth of an 
oligarchy of landowners and the total impoverishment of 
a portion of the people/' 

Like all commands given to the people by Jehovah, 
those regarding the readjustment of land every fifty years 
and the cancellation of debts every seven years were only 
partially obeyed. Yet upon their strict observance and 
the observance of similar laws not only in spirit, but in 
letter, depended divine protection and favor. These laws 
were in force and obeyed with increasing faithfulness, 
Jewish historians tell us, until the destruction of Solo- 
mon's Temple, a period of over seven hundred years. 

The first sin that called forth God's disfavor and Israel's 
defeat in the land of Canaan was disobeying this very 
law. When cunning and crafty Achan concealed in his 
tent the silver coin and wedge of gold that should have 
been placed in the public treasury, the Lord declared that 
Achan and all he had should be burned with fire; and 
it was not until he and his family, together with his cattle, 
were not only stoned to death, but reduced to ashes, that 
the favor of the Lord returned. 

It is highly significant that this nation and its people, 
its land and its laws^ were of God's own choosing, and 
that of all the nation? of th§ mx^il it Qecupied a signa% 



76 OUn NATION' 8 NEED. 

conspicuous and sacred place in human history. Among 
its mighty men were Moses and Joshua, David and Solo- 
mon, Isaiah and Daniel, and many others, great in their 
chosen sphere; and in the veins of its people flowed the 
blood of the promised Messiah. The records of its con- 
quests in war and its achievements in peace, together 
with the lives of its patriarchs, its prophets, its kings, 
and its people as a race, have been given by inspiration 
of God to us and to all time, and are "profitable for doc- 
trine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in 
righteousness.^^ Whether these laws are in binding force 
in the world at present may be an open question. Their 
literal application in the present age is not here defended 
or denied. This much is true: the code of ^-^ral and 
civil law promulgated to this ancient people has been the 
foundation of all the laws of civilized states ever since. 
The moral code is considered in force and unalterable 
"because it springs from the natural law engraved in the 
human heart.^^ There are good grounds for believing that 
the civil code continues in force because it, in like manner, 
springs from the natural law engraved in human society. 
They were not laws of rites and ceremonies which have 
been abrogated. They were at that time essential. Their 
authoritative source cannot be questioned. The greatest 
jurists of all ages have maintained that no human statute 
can stand that is not in harmony with the revealed laws 
of God. This implies that human laws should aim to 
imitate the divine law. God's laws are perfect because 
they are natural, and they are natural because they are 
complete. The laws of our nation can never be perfect 
until they are also both natural and complete. If this 
completeness depends upon the adoption of a divide-up 
of property and the cancellation of debts, the divine com- 
mand, on account of its natural fitness, if for no other 
reason, is still in force. God's laws were not mxade to 
be repealed. They end only in fulfillment. Omnipotent 
wisdom has never yet opened a pathway or plan of action 
for mankind that ended, except at the beginning of some- 
thing better. 

With the advent of the Christian era a radical system 
qI dividing-up was again inaugurated, The early Chris- 



oun NATION '8 NEED, "ry 

tians not only divided with each other, but they had all 
things in common. "All that believed were together," 
and their temporal interests were a unit. They "sold 
their possessions and goods and parted them to all men 
as every man had need/' "Neither was there any among 
them that lacked; for as many as were possessed of land 
or houses sold them and brought the price of them that 
were sold." As had been done in the land of Canaan, 
men were appointed to take care of the possessions and 
distribute the same as each deserved or had need. 

While it is not supposed that the selling of property 
and giving the price into the common treasury was re- 
quired by any expressed law, yet as a practice among the 
early Christians it seems to have been quite universal. 
When Zaccheus said, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods 
I give to the poor," the sacrifice met with divine approval ; 
but to the rich young ruler Jesus said : "Yet lackest thou 
one thing; sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the 
poor." Whenever the word "distribute" occurs in the 
New Testament, it is from a Greek word synonymous 
with "all things in common." The extreme importance 
attached to the principle of giving property was strik- 
ingly illustrated in the case of Ananias and his wife, both 
of whom fell dead before the altar when accused by Peter 
of keeping back a part of their money. "It is remark- 
able," says Dr. Pentecost, "that the first sin that God 
signally punished upon the children of Israel after en- 
tering Canaan was that of Achan, who coveted the wedge 
of gold and the goodly Babylonish garment; while the 
first sin He punished after the descent of the Holy 
Spirit was that of Ananias and Sapphira, who kept back 
part of the price of their possessions while pretending to 
have given it all to the Lord." 

It is also significant that among over 2,000,000 people 
who participated in the division of property in Canaan, 
only one family proved dishonest; and of the thousands 
who were converted under the preaching of Peter and 
the other apostles, only one family conspired to deceive. 
As records of honesty perhaps there is no other parallel. 
They are both striking evidences that when men are sub^ 



'J'8 OUB NATION'S NEED. 

jected to fair and equitable conditions they will in return 
prove honest and sincere. 

The division of wealth among the people and the can- 
cellation of debts were a part of the history of ancient 
Greece, and it was these measures that made her great- 
ness and glory possible. 

When Lycnrgus, the wise Spartan lawgiver, became 
ruler of Greece, he determined that "the constitution he 
should establish should be the most excellent in all the 
world.'' Among other reforms he made a new division 
of land, for here he found great inequalities existing, as 
there were many who had no lands and the wealth was 
concentrated in the hands of a few. Being defeated in 
the division of movable property, he stopped the cur- 
rency of gold and silver as coin and permitted iron money 
only, so that "to remove one or two hundred dollars in 
money would require a yoke of oxen." 

Greece, however, fell into the hands of hard masters, 
and under the tyranny of Draco the rich again oppressed 
th*^ poor and weak. Draco's laws, "written in blood, not 
in ink," reduced the Commonwealth to a complete anarchy, 
without law, or order, or system in the administration of 
justice. 

At this crisis Solon, the eminent Athenian and one of 
the wise men of Greece, was made not simply archon, 
but sole dictator and legislator. 

Solon at once liberated the serfs from slavery, canceled 
all debts, established an equitable system of taxation, 
granted universal suffrage, required parents to impart a 
means of livelihood to their children, stimulated industry, 
and punished idleness. 

Under the code of Solon, which freed the land of the 
poor from all debts, Greece flourished as a model re- 
public. She became renowned in the arts of peace and 
war. Athens, her capital, had no poorhouses and no need 
of them. Although Solon's political constitution was 
finally repealed, his social code was allowed to stand. At 
the end of the two centuries, in the age of Pericles, Grecian 
civilization had become the highest and most cultured 
the world had ever seen. Grecian architecture, sculpture, 
paintings poetry^ science^ philosophy^ literature^ oratoryj 



OJIB NATION'S NEED. 79 

and intellectual culture reached a development that has 
no parallel. Her record of immortal men surpasses that 
of any other nation of ancient times. Her people be- 
came teachers, leaders, and colonizers everywhere. The 
city of Miletus alone became the mother of 300 towns. 
Grecian centers were established, and the customs and 
language of the people were those of Greece. So uni- 
versally true was this that when the Gospel was preached, 
no matter whether addressed to Eoman, Grecian, or 
Asiatic Christians, the Greek language could be used and 
everywhere understood. 

It might be reasonably claimed that the principles which 
underlie a division of property are basic in the organic 
construction of our Government at the present time. 

If the Ten Commandments and the Golden Eule are 
the basis of all the laws of Christendom, surely those which 
pertain to a distribution of property and the cancellation 
of debts must hold a vital relation to human affairs. The 
Ten Commandments, given from Mount Sinai, are held 
as sacredly binding now, and why should not laws con- 
temporary with the Decalogue serve a purpose in the 
present age? While none of these ancient laws, although 
divinely given, may be literally binding to-day, the prin- 
ciples, and to no small degree the conditions, which made 
them opportune then, still prevail. If these contain an 
essence that will remedy panics, oppressions, inequalities, 
and discontent — leaven that will renovate our political, 
industrial, and social life — they are exactly what every 
true patriot is looking for. 

It is worthy of note that while all great uplifts in his- 
tory have not been secured through a division of property 
among the people, they have resulted from forces of the 
same general nature. !N"early all the worthy struggles 
of mankind have been to secure justice, liberty, and 
equality. How valiantly men have fought for equality 
before the law, for equality in government, in religion and 
opportunity! The oratory, the poetry, the music, the 
valor, the heroism, and the soul-sympathy of all the 
ages have been like so many invincible champions of '^thy 
neighbor as thyself 



80 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

If the laws of Moses have lost some of their primal 
directness man's responsibility toward his fellows has not 
been lessened. The thunderings of Sinai are only a pre- 
lude to the plain teachings on tlie mountain side of Hattin. 
The laws of the entire world dwindle beside the heart 
service and life devotion set np at Calvary. Says the 
eminent scholar, William Howitt: "I will defy any one 
to proceed far in the New Testament without coming 
upon practices and commands of our Saviour that, if he 
comprehend their true and practical import, will compel 
him into a politician. . . . Will any man tell me 
how we are to love our neighbors as ourselves if we see 
them oppressed, made poor, made miserable, made igno- 
rant and criminal by the measures of bad government, 
and this not in individual cases, but by thousands and 
tens of thousands, if we move neither hand nor foot to 
help them? . . . The religion that is not prepared 
to attack human evils at their root and to prevent them as 
much as possible by destroying their causes has long ago been 
pronounced to *^be a sounding brass and a tinkling cym- 
bal.' ... In a word, Christianity is not merely a 
religion of principles, hut of consequences ; and he who 
does not dare to look these principles in the face and, 
without fear of man or devil, of high or low, of unpopu- 
larity or personal sacrifice, to carry these divine principles 
boldly out to their full, direct, and legitimate consequences 
— that man may talk of Christianity, but has yet to learn 
what it is." 

It has been well said that men do not make laws; they 
only discover them. From Eden to the present the same 
principles have been at the foundation of all human 
achievements. Whatever originates life, w^hatever con- 
structs, whatever plants and garners, germinates and 
grows, lives and thrives, must work in harmony with the 
divine order. Jesus in His teachings refers to the Mosaic 
laws scores of times, and in the Sermon on the Mount 
quotes from the very chapter which commands a divide- 
up of property. It was He who said : "Think not that I 
am come to destroy the law or the prophets j I mi uoi 
CQjae to destroy^ but to fulfill/' 



And the common people heard Him gladly. — Mark. 

While scourged by famine from a smiling land, 

The mournful peasant leads his humble band, 

And, while he sings, without one hand to save. 

The country blooms — a garden and a grave. — Goldsmith. 

By nature we nearly resemble one another; conditions separate 
us very far. — Confucius. 

We are living in an age in which the cause that espouses and 
struggles to attain real justice and true freedom deserves the 
earnest thought and best efforts of the men of our times.— 
Samuel Gompeks. 

An equal distribution of property is the foundation of the 
republic. — Noah Webstee. 

Many nations are guilty of the crime of permitting oppressive 
laws and bad government to remain among them, by which the 
poor are crushed and the lives of the innocent laid at the mercy 
of wicked and arbitrary men. This is a national sin of the 
deepest dye, as it involves most others. — Barbauld. 

Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures. In the 
assurance of strength there is strength; and they are the weak- 
est, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their 
powers. — Bovee. 

If anything has been made certain by the economic revolu- 
tion of the last twenty-five years, it is that society cannot 
much longer get on upon the libertarian, competitive, go-as- 
you-please system to which so many sensible persons seem ad- 
dicted. The population of the great nations are becoming too 
condensed for that. — E. B. Andrews. 



82 



OUB NATION^a NEED, 83 



CHAPTER VI. 

ARE WE PREPARED FOR A DIVIDE-UP? 

Are the people of the United States prepared for a 
divide-up and start-even? 

Yes. 

The success or failure of a measure which changes the 
relations of men to their surroundings depends, to no 
small degree, upon the people being prepared for it. 
While a division of property would partake of the charac- 
ter of a revolution, it would be a remarkably natural thing 
to do. It would be in full accord with the rapidly in- 
creasing democratic sentiments and practices of the times. 
It would be in the direction in which are traveling our 
social, industrial, and commercial affairs. It would bring 
into harmony a legion of organized forces which have the 
same general aim in view, but which, in their isolated 
forms, are now antagonistic to each other. 

Those who have watched with unbiased care the general 
trend of business, political, social, and religious affairs in 
the United States during recent years have witnessed 
much that bespeaks radical reforms in all of these systems. 
Advanced business methods, never before dreamed of, are 
quickly developed; and they crowd conservative methods 
to the wall. Bold political measures during recent years 
obtain universal discussion, and even the most pronounced 
social and economic doctrines are being studied as never 
before. It is demanded that religion show a deeper love 
and clearer faith if it is to lead mankind and illumine the 
world. 

As an outgrowth of natural and legitimate advancement, 
mankind has to a remarkable degree developed mutual 
and fraternal relations. These relations in their or- 
ganized forms represent no small share of our total re- 
sources and expenditures. And as human relations be- 



84 OXTR l^ATION'8 NEED. 

come more complex, interests become more closely asso- 
ciated, and the growth of mutual effort and cooperation 
are inevitable. These public fraternities are great levei- 
ers. When their influence dominates in the nation great 
diversities among individuals will become intolerable. 

The common-school system of the United States is 
entirely mutual in its general feaiares. Our school sys- 
tem is the highest compliment possible to financial and 
social fraternity, because there is no higher trust than 
the training and education of children. There are over 
20,000,000 children of school age in our country, and 
over two-thirds of them are enrolled as pupils in our public 
schools. These millions of children, five days in each 
week, for several months in each year, live in an environ- 
ment which promotes the mutual spirit. They are taught 
the same general curriculum in the same language. All 
of them are taught to honor the flag, and all are expected 
to learn that "all men are created equal; that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; 
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness." Our common-school system incurs an outlay of 
over $200,000,000, and over 400,000 persons are employed 
as teachers. 

Our postal system is also entirely mutual in its general 
management. There are over 71,000 postmasters in the 
United States, and with their subordinates and clerks they 
compose a vast army of workers. About $100,000,000 are 
annually expended in this department of our Government. 
And it can be said in defense of governmental control and 
ownership of great enterprises that no enterprise in our 
nation is attended with such extensive detail and none is 
executed with more ease and satisfaction to those being 
served than the Post-Ofiice Department. 

The growth and success of 'building and loan associations 
show the natural demand for practical mutual interests in 
financial operations. Although these are modern institu- 
tions, nearly 6,000 associations are in existence. They are 
located in almost every city and town, and have a member- 
ship of nearly 2,000,000. Their combined assets amount 
to over $450,000,000. Their profits have amounted to over 
$80,000,000, and 400,000 homes have been built through 



OTTB NATION'S NEED. 85 

their influence. Of building and loan associations Com-; 
missioner Wright says: "They are semi-banking institu- 
tions conducted by ordinary men not trained as bankers, 
but yet have met with remarkably few losses." 

The business of life insurance, which is still more or- 
ganically mutual in design and purpose, has reached gigan- 
tic proportions in the United States. According to recent 
authentic statistcs there were in 1898 no less than 11,218-, 
330 insurance policies in force in regular companies. These 
policies amounted to the enormous sum of $6,825,037,770. 
This is equal to more than one-fifteenth of the entire 
wealth of the nation. The total income of these companies 
for the year was $325,452,134 and the expenditures $222,- 
518,788. The wealth which they represent in the form of 
assets is enormous. The total assets of the regular pre- 
mium companies is over $1,400,000,000. Over 75,000 men 
are engaged in the life insurance business, and some of the 
officials receive salaries equaling that of the chief executive 
of the nation. 

There are also a large number of assessment insurance 
and fraternal societies which enjoy an immense patronage. 
In 1897 these organizations had a membership of 4,039,- 
062, representing an insurance of $7,799,428,000. Dur- 
ing the year 978,234 new members were admitted and $95,- 
932,964 was collected in assessments and $75,030,497 paid 
out to policy holders. 

The total amount of insurance of all kinds in force in 
1898 reached the enormous sum of $14,125,578,072. This 
is more than one-sixth of our national wealth. The pre- 
miums for the year amounted to $339,280,913 and the 
losses paid amounted to $165,718,804. 

Bich benefit, accident, and benevolent societies, operated 
upon a mutual basis, exist and flourish almost everywhere. 
Their combined membership is over 5,000,000. Men are 
easily found in any community whose income from socie- 
ties to which they belong is greater when they are sick than 
what they can possibly earn when well, and who are worth 
far more in cash when they are dead than during their life- 
time. It is to be inferred that all of this vast amount of 
insurance is adjusted once during what might be consid- 
ered as each succeeding generation. In the multitude of 



86 OUR NATION' 8 NEED. 

details and in the general scope of the work it requires it 
would scarcely be surpassed in a universal adjustment of 
the entire wealth of the nation among all the people. 

In addition to moneyed concerns, secret societies, fra- 
ternal orders, trades and labor unions, and the endless 
number of organized interests that are born and flourish 
attest the growth of the social and cooperative spirit among 
the American people. Almost every trade, business, and 
profession has its organization, through which its mem- 
bers secure mutual benefits of some kind. 

Organized religious forces show the universal approval 
of cooperative effort. Although divorced from the state 
and dependent upon voluntary affiliations, the Church has 
over 23,000,000 members, and it secures the friendly sup- 
port of almost every one. While it is divided by creeds and 
subdivided by special interests, yet as a whole it shows a 
power for organization on the part of the people preemi- 
nently remarkable, and a loyalty to mutual cooperation 
that challenges every other form of effort. 

Business methods are also following the same spirit. 
Stock companies and corporations are rapidly supplanting 
individual effort in business, by which means promiscuous 
wealth is collected from many sources and operated as a 
single unit. In this way a railroad, an express company, 
a steamboat line, or gas, water, or manufacturing plant 
may represent one, a score, or a hundred stockholders. 
Mammoth department stores and gigantic business con- 
cerns in many instances are aggregations of diversified in- 
terests combined for mutual profit. Even the "trusts,'^ 
"monopolies," "syndicates," and "combines," against which 
so much has been said, are simply mutual agreements be- 
tween concerns already great and powerful. These com- 
binations, overwhelming in their magnitude, by being 
owned by a few instead of the many are a morbid and un- 
just perversion of a natural and wholesome desire among 
men. 

The great lesson to be learned from these cooperative 
and mutual growths in our country is that they represent 
a living, active, growing force that must be recognized. 
They have come to stay. They illustrate the rapidly de- 
veloping and inevitable course of human events. They are 



OUB NATION ^8 NEED. 87 

a natural outgrowth of our republican form of government 
and of the democratic spirit of our times. 

The growth of the cooperative and mutual spirit among 
the people shows development of civilization. Its inevi- 
table demands are that all great interests become correlated 
and subordinated to the common good. The success of 
the common-school system or the postal system shows what 
other similar interests should be and must eventually be- 
come. The evidence that the people are prepared for a 
recast of our financial and social conditions is overwhelm- 
ing. 

Everybody knows that recent progress has been amazing, 
yet few seem to realize the direction in which progress is 
traveling. All genuine progress is toward the ideal. Men 
and affairs have simply become more natural. The real 
need is that natural relations be restored or harmonized. 
It cannot be expected that a new and improved civilization 
will grow up without demanding increased possessions and 
improved environments that all can enjoy. 

The existence of widespread discontent and a sincere 
desire for genuine reform is also a natural sequence of 
actual progress. There is a patriotic demand that these 
and other overgrown concerns cease to grow millionaires 
and monopolies, and that they begin to elevate and profit 
the masses upon whom they feed and flourish. We are in 
spirit outgrowing the barbarism under which one class of 
men builds railroads, or telegraph lines, or ships, or fac- 
tories, or business blocks, and another class owns them ; un- 
der which one class of men digs from the earth the nation's 
coal supply or mineral supply and simply exists, while a 
few manipulators revel in riches ; under which honest labor 
collects oil from the earth and transports it over the coun- 
try, through sunshine and rain, for a humble pittance, 
while a few oil magnates outrival Croesus in wealth many 
times over. 

Never were men better prepared to become property 
owners than in our country to-day. The belief that the 
poor are incapable of taking care of property is entirelv 
unfounded. While a few are improvident, of an over- 
whelming majority, if placed under normal conditions, ex- 
actly the opposite would be true. The poor are better 



88 OVR NATION'S NEED. 

equipped by experience, by discipline, and by force of habit 
to accept and wisely employ an average share of property 
than the rich are to give np their wealth and live natural, 
frugal lives. There is both truth and wisdom in the words 
of Hazlitt : "Prosperity, is a great teacher ; adversity is a 
greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains 
and strengthens it." 

There is not a spot in all our country, be it ever so ob- 
scure and desolate, where a moderate possession of property 
should not prove a blessing. The American idea of life, 
its conception of freedom, and the home life in its influ- 
ence upon citizenship are all, to a high degree, dependent 
upon the individual ownership of property. Poverty, while 
always to be deplored, in the presence of natural wealth, 
intelligence, and developing Christian culture becomes a 
crime. 

Moreover, men have grown to love each other better than 
their lives would indicate, better than conditions allow 
them to amply express. There are legions of men, both 
rich and poor, who profoundly desire to leave the world 
better and happier than they found it. Within the breast 
of many a rich man lucre and love wage a conflict, while 
the conscience sincerely hopes that love will win. Men 
have conceived a broader and nobler view of the world; 
they have acquired a keener sympathy and a deeper concern 
for humanity; and these things have become crystallized 
as tenets of the popular faith. But amid the complexities 
of modem enterprise mammonism, schooled in all the arts 
of cunning, has conspired against the people. Their high- 
est motives are being crushed and their best hopes are being 
turned aside. 

The people are prepared, through expectation, for a great 
reform. The sun sets every day upon a larger number of 
men who believe that the time has come for a great concert 
of advance in public affairs. The conscience of the rich 
is stricken ; the hearts of the poor are bleeding — the souFs 
need of both is common justice. The people are both ready 
and anxious to "adopt a policy more dignified and more 
effective than leaving themselves to be kicked along the 
path of reform by the recoil of their own vices." ^^J, 
upon the question regarding what the changes shall be^ 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 89 

what shall bring them to a successful issue, and to what 
they will lead do men differ. 

The masses, the millions of toilers have made for them- 
selves a proud record. In the midst of injustice they have 
been honest; in the midst of oppression they have been 
loyal; in the midst of a mad rush for wealth and power 
they have been patient. They have been faithful in their 
humble sphere, and they deserve a higher trust. Their 
legitimate heritage is property interests, business responsi- 
bilities, and the material qualifications of full citizenship. 

Our Government invites a new administration of public 
affairs. It anticipates a common people with equal rights, 
privileges, opportunities, and interests. The great body of 
Americans, it was intended, should keep closely to a whole- 
some common level. The nower and the dazzle of concen- 
trated wealth are not in harmony with our free institu- 
tions. These things breed revolt and not contentment in 
a free land. 

By patriotic service men are becoming fitted for a new 
era. The best heart and brain are enlisted. Men who love 
their country and honor its flag are rapidly becoming 
enamored of humanity. The best manhood is seeking fel- 
lowship of a great cause. From the pulpit, the platform, 
and the sanctum come words of inspiration that echo over 
our land. Men who love and long to live the Golden Eule 
swell the ranks for a new warfare. It is safe to move on. 
The ship of state was never so sure to ride the storm as in 
present conflicts. The triumph of righteousness was never 
so inevitable as in the struggle for a new and better life 
now welling up from the hearts of the American people. 



There is that scattereth and yet increaseth ; and there is that 
withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. — 
Solomon. 

" Wealth in the gross is death, but life diffused ; 
As poison heals, in just proportion usedj 
In heap, like ambergris, a stink it lies, 
But, well dispersed, is incense to the skies." 

Prosperity, if it mean anything at all, means the distribution 
of wealth among the raany and over a large territory. It cer- 
tainly does not mean the concentration of wealth and power in 
a few hands and in a few large cities. — Chaungey M. Depew. 

If I had never held command — if I had fallen — if all our 
generals had fallen, there were ten thousand behind us who 
would have done our work just as well. — U. S. Grant. 

The conservative asks. What is? That higher question. What 
ought to be? is above his capacity; and whenever he hears it 
put he speaks of blasphemy and anarchy. . . . Not a corrup- 
tion has been overturned, not an iniquity has been cloven down 
in history, that has not fallen by the hands of progressive men 
and died amid the general howl and lamentations of conserva- 
tives. — Edward D. Baker. 

If our American civilization is to endure and progress, we 
must bring about a change in the distribution of wealth. If 
conditions are such as to be beneficial to the small number and 
injurious to society in general, those conditions should be 
changed. 

This is to be the battle of the future — concentrated wealth on 
one hand, concentrated poverty on the other! If we desire to 
prevent actual war between class and class, it is imperative that 
a legal check at once be placed upon the growing power for evil 
of aggregated wealth. — Robert N. Reeves. 

The great American republic seems to be entering upon a new 
era, in which it must solve a new problem — the reconciliation of 
democracy with modern 'conditions of production. — Alexandeb 
Johnson. 



90 



OUR NATION'S NEED, 91 



CHAPTER VII. 

.WOULD THE COUKTEY BE BENEFITED? 

A DIVIDE-UP and start-even would touch every phase of 
life. That a legion of changes would take place and a 
multitude of new forces be set in motion none can deny. 
Individual conditions would undergo a revolution. We 
should inhabit a new country. We should be placed in an 
unprecedented environment. Ambition^ society, business, 
and politics would radiate from new standpoints. The 
transition would not be a dream, but a reality. 

When the hour should arrive for the new order of things, 
and the bells, declaring financial liberty, filled the land 
with music, men, women, and children would set their 
faces toward the future. The past would be forgotten. It 
would be like the dawn of a new day. There would neither 
be a rich family nor a poor family in the whole nation. 
Every household and every man and woman would repre- 
sent a substantial nucleus. Every one would possess some 
thing to encourage him, and it would be possible for every 
life to become wedded to its own. Heaven would kiss 
mother earth. Men would see and hear anew. They would 
love with a new joy. They would possess a new inspira- 
tion. 

The records of every county clerk and of every sheriff 
would be wiped clean. No old judgments upon the musty 
pages of public dockets would longer haunt and threaten 
the unfortunate with their claims. The perdition of pov- 
erty and the hell of debt would be destroyed. Every book 
account and promissory note would be forgiven and the 
borrower and the lender could begin afresh. Every debt 
against school houses, churches, and colleges would be can- 
celed. Bonds against towns, counties, and states would 
become void and of no effect. Government coupons would 
no longer be clipped by bondholders. Every debt of the 



92 OUR NATION' 8 NEED. 

nation, excepting what is due in foreign lands, would be 
buried in oblivion. One-fourth of the wealth of the na- 
tion, now jeopardized by debt, would be freed. Billions in 
value, and what is now hugged as the guarantee of gilt- 
edged collateral, could be safely u^ed to kindle fires. 

The Government would own the railroads, telegraphs 
and telephone lines, the express carriage business, gold, sil- 
ver, iron, copper, oil, and gas mines, and other natural 
monopolies. It would also own all land not needed by the 
people. The various states would own that which pertains 
to the commonwealth, free from all incumbrances. Cities, 
towns, and counties would own municipal railways, water- 
works, electric and gas plants, and all buildings of a public 
nature. Every old lawsuit would be settled, and every 
wrangle and wrong over money and property equitably ad- 
justed. 

Taxes would be reduced to a minimum. If the Govern- 
ment owned all natural monopolies and the states and 
cities those things natural to commonwealths and munici- 
palities, the public revenues would be enormous. The in- 
come of railroads, mines, trolley lines, water and light 
plants, and other public possessions, even if the people 
were supplied at a low figure, would be very great. Tariffs 
and licenses would no longer be necessary for the sake of 
revenue. The Government could pay its own expenses and 
maintain a liberal degree of public improvements without 
collecting any taxes whatever from the people. 

Moneyed interests now vested in mutual organizations 
would cease, and all insurance policies upon life and prop- 
erty, all interests in assessment societies and building and 
loan associations would lapse, require a fresh contract, and 
begin anew. All patents would expire. Fictitious values, 
watered stocks, and skeleton fortunes would disappear. The 
"money power'' as now existing would be destroyed, and 
the "bulls" and "bears" forced into retirement. Wall 
Street would be robbed of its market commodities. The 
Stock Exchange would close, and it might well be preserved 
as a museum — a Delphic Oracle at whose shrine thousands 
of men sacrificed their all and about whose altars the 
wealth of the nation once worshiped with devotion and 
fear. Bradstreet and Dun would find it necessary to es- 



OUB NATION'S NEED. 93 

tablish a new basis upon which to rate the world of busi- 
ness. What now stands for the greatest wealth would then 
also include the highest in character. The mistakes and 
the misdeeds of past struggles, the greed and gain that 
have fed and fattened upon flesh and blood, would be sub- 
dued and undone. 

Freed from these enslaving conditions, the people would 
at once become normal consumers. The people would be 
able to buy what they need and pay for it. It would be 
an immediate specific for business depression and hard 
times. All ordinary comforts and necessary commodities 
would at once be within reach of every man's pocket-book. 
Within ten days every producer in the nation, whether of 
bread or clothing, furniture or playthings, building ma- 
terials or literature, would be overwhelmed with orders. 
The glut of goods that now stock the stores of merchants, 
begging for buyers, would be cleaned out. There would 
be a commercial famine. The United States would be the 
greatest market the world has ever seen. 

That a divide-up and start-even would cause a flood tide 
in business admits of no controversy. If $50 for each 
adult, $25 for each child, and working currency for public 
enterprises were distributed evenly all over the country, it 
would mean nearly $4,000,000,000 in cash in circulation. 
The most of this money would go where it is sorely needed 
and where it would prove a boon beyond conception. Le- 
gions of people would be able to count dollars where they 
are now forced to count cents. 

Means of livelihood would be within reach of every one 
and money would be active. 

Confidence would be completely restored. Opportunity, 
so long a byword and an outcast^ would knock at every- 
body's door. 

Hundreds of thousands of homes would be built, fur- 
nished, and supported that are now impossible. Huts and 
hovels would be torn down and replaced by respectable 
dwellings. The rickety and scanty furniture that now dis- 
graces too many households would be used for kindling 
wood, and those things which conserve a higher civilization 
would take its place. 

The slum and overcrowded tenement districts to be 



94 OUR NATION^S NEED. 

found in all large cities could be vacated and a bonfire 
made of the rubbish — buildings, furniture, and filth— and 
such localities turned into parks and playgrounds. The 
legions of men, women, and children who now live in these 
degrading and fated environments could build homes in 
suburban and rural localities, where the air is pure and 
room abundant. For a full century the farm and field 
have been sending sons and daughters into the city, keep- 
ing them alive by the constant addition of vital energy and 
pure blood. This travel cityward has gone on until the 
city has become a menace to health, success, and character 
— a peril alike to man, woman, and child. The only spe- 
cific remedy lies in getting back to the fields. 

There no longer exists any reason why people should 
overcrowd together as has been the custom. Modern meth- 
ods of travel — the railroad, the trolley car, the bicycle — 
have wonderfully minified distances and invite a revolu- 
tion in the customs of city life. Business centers of cities, 
with great sanitary and social profit, might be vacated as 
places of residence, and more remote sections become the 
dwelling-place of the people. 

The ability to obtain has not kept pace with the growth 
of desire. Education, the advent of new forms of com- 
fort, contact with those who have more and better advan- 
tages than we have, who secure what we are denied — ail 
these increase desires; and the more enlightened we are, 
unless our wants are increasingly supplied, the more surely 
will discontent follow. But with home ownership and 
other possibilities would come contentment and permanent 
qualities of character. Around these newly inspired fire- 
sides sweeter and friendlier affinities would be established. 

Prosperity that is real, supported by a tangible faith in 
the future, would at once take the place of panics, strikes, 
idleness, and financial disaster. When normal conditions 
of business and society were restored, men would become 
more natural in habit and more correct in life. Schooled 
in idleness and uncertainty, millions of people have re- 
duced their expenditures to the most stringent minimum, 
while millions of others have grown prodigal and indiffer- 
ent. Business has long suffered those abominations always 
accompanying eras of financial anxiety, wherein one class 



OUR NATION '8 NEED. 95 

refrain from getting what they need and the other class 
fail to pay for what they get. Purchases have for years 
been indicative of unnatural circumstances. Cheap food, 
cheap labor, cheap beer, and cheap tobacco overflow the 
markets. Modern advertising is saturated with cheap quo- 
tations, and the bargain store has had a heyday. People 
live from hand to mouth and fritter away the pittance that 
they earn. Modern life has become unstable, and legions 
of families spend their lives migrating from one tenement 
or town to another without any settled aim in life and 
without any momentum to their ambition. More than 
half of our population rent homes. Nearly 10,000,000 
live under mortgaged roofs. The struggle to pay rent, and 
interest, and taxes, and to make both ends meet fills mill- 
ions of lives with discontent and threatening vicissitudes. 

What mankind needs is a foundation for fresh hope. 
Instead of being handicapped by mortgages and debts they 
are unable to pay and by enslaving environments they can- 
not escape, men need the clear blue sky of freedom under 
which to work and win. The chance to begin in a small 
way and grow needs to continually prevail. The first 
rounds in the ladder of fame and fortune need replacing 
so that beginners can gain foothold. Infinitely more im- 
portant is it that the base of lifers ladder be set among the 
humblest of men than that its top be crowned with a few 
garlands of wealth and renown. 

Were a divide-up to take place, the laboring man would 
become a proprietor. If men were to become financially 
interested in their own work, what is now a ^^trade" or a 
succession of "jobs'^ would become the business of life. 

It is becoming almost impossible to find a single article 
made by those who had any interest in it as owners. Per- 
sonal responsibility that is responsible has become almost 
obsolete. 

A more universal ownership is an imperative need of the 
times. If a divide-up of property never takes place, laws 
should be enacted whereby all workingmen be granted the 
privilege of acquiring ownership, to a reasonable extent, in 
that which requires their skill and handicraft. If it re- 
quires the skill and labor of a hundred men to construct 
a locomotive or a child^s toy, or to make a threshing ma- 



96 OUR liTATION'S NEED, 

cliiiie, or a paper of pins, a hnndred men should be inter- 
ested in these things during their manufacture as owners. 
It should be a law that every concern of a permanent na- 
ture and employing large numbers of workmen be required 
to allow each of these workmen, after a proper term of 
service, to purchase at a fair price capital stock to an 
amount equal to that which his individual labor represents. 

Wage-earners are entitled to such a law. When an en- 
terprise or a factory or a store has grown so extensive as to 
require the service of fifty or a hundred or a thousand men, 
it is big enough for fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand men 
to own ; and each workman therein in good standing should 
have the legal right to become the owner of a fiftieth, a 
hundredth, or a thousandth part of the capital stock, to 
share in the profits, and to have a voice in the business 
management. The adoption of such a law would open up 
to workingmen an opportunity for development and 
growth of which they are now entirely deprived. It would 
make property and business subordinate to labor — the true 
relation. Property and wealth are only commodities, but 
labor is life. 

For many years thoughtful statesmen and economists 
have believed and taught that some measure should be 
adopted whereby the individual ownership of land be lim- 
ited to a certain number of acres, and that, so far as pos- 
sible, ownership be confined to actual settlers or occupants. 
For the same reasons, and with no less force, there is need 
of a law to limit the ownership of factories, stores, and 
other enterprises. When they grow beyond a certain size, 
in magnitude or in employment of labor, individual rights 
to exclusive ownership should cease. If wisely adjusted, 
such a law need not destroy the wholesome and legitimate 
ambition and enterprise of any one, yet it would gi^e free- 
dom and opportunity to a legion of wage-earners now held 
in industrial bondage. 

That ownership of property become more diffused and 
"Universal is the supreme need of the present age. Owner- 
ship carries with it a power that is tremendous. There is 
not only a close, but a vital relation existing between own- 
ership and the highest forms of labor. There are, in con- 
sequence, vital reasons why every farmer should own the 



OUJR NATION'S NEED. 97 

land he occupies and cultivates; that every workingman 
have a direct financial interest in that which he makes ; and 
that every salesman, to some extent, own the goods he sells, 
inspired by the responsibility which ownership alone can 
bestow, land would be better appreciated and more pro- 
ductive, and the business of the manufacturer and mer- 
chant would be more systematic, reliable, and profitable. 

When the supervision of land or other property passes 
from the owner to that of tenant — when the direct respon- 
sibilities and interests are severed — it almost invariably 
begins to depreciate in value and in productiveness. There 
are a legion of qualities in child-nature that only a parent 
can properly understand and minister to, and in like man- 
ner there are a legion of qualities inherent in property 
which none but the owner can appreciate and fully utilize. 
"He who wants a thing done right must do it himself is 
not so much a hackneyed maxim as it is an inexorable law. 
We are more interested in what is ours than any one else 
can possibly be. It may be a duty to others, but it is our 
life. The tenant is, of necessity, almost always poor. And 
it is in most cases only a question of time when the land- 
lord finds his property out of repair rnd impoverished and 
a source of expense rather than revenue. And the same 
laws and principles which apply to land and property gov- 
ern commerce and manufacture. It cannot be other than 
a constant menace and jeopardy to property and business 
when it is required that they not only support the families 
of those who do all the work, but in addition must support 
an aristocracy, living in luxury, as a tribute to legal owner- 
ship. It is a form of robbery to demand that property and 
business furnish two livelihoods when they were intended 
to furnish the requisites of only one. It would seem that 
God has so ordained that when human liberty and human 
effort reach their highest expression, every man will be- 
come the free master of his own life and labor. As our 
nation grows older and farming becomes more scientific, 
and manufacture and trade, on account of competition and 
inventive genius, require the employment of more progres- 
sive methods, the adoption of closer relations than those 
held by tenants and wage-earners will become imperative. 

iThe evil effects of the long-continued divorce of owner- 



08 OTTit NATION'S NEED. 

ship and labor are well illustrated by the condition of Ire- 
land to-day. The land of Ireland is largely owned by 
aliens, but tilled by tenants. Not only are the tenants 
poverty-stricken, but many of the land owners are objects 
of charity. One of the great benevolent organizations of 
Great Britain has for its sole object the relief of English 
women who own land in Ireland, but who, on account of 
the demoralization of land profits, have been reduced to 
absolute poverty.* 

What a blessing it would be for all concerned if the 
ruling powers of Great Britain were to cease struggling for 
military dominion for a season and divide the land of Ire- 
land into small farms and give it, unincumbered, to those 
who now occupy it! How the Emerald Isle would bloom 
and flourish anew and how Irish wit and wisdom would 
baptize and bless afresh the rest of mankind ! 

Yet these same conditions, accompanied by the inevita- 
ble results, are becoming widespread in our own land. Our 
houses are becoming owned by one class and occupied by 
another. Our farms are becoming the property of land- 
lords and cultivated by tenants. Business enterprise and 
manufacture are becoming the investments of money kings 
and manned by a multitude of industrial slaves. 

So potent an influence is the ownership of property that 
a wide difference inevitably exists between those who pos- 
sess nroperty and those who do not. Riches and poverty 
divide men into classes divergent and distinct. Man^s re- 
lation to society, to law, to religion, and to every phase of 
life is affected, to no small degree, by property ownership. 

* The following advertisement, copied verbatim from the Pall Mall Magazine^ 
one of the leading periodicals of Great Britain, explains itself. 

IRISH DISTRESSED LADIES^ FUND. 
Patron : Her Majesty the Queen. 

Executive Committee : President, H. R. H. the Princess Louise, Marchioness 
of Lome; Vice-President. Her Grace the Dowa.arer Dutchess of Marlborousrh; 
Hon. Treasurer. H. H. Plevdell "Bouverie, Esq. ; Bankers, Messrs. Barclay Ran- 
som & Co., 1 Pall Mall East, S. W.; Manageress Work Depot, Miss Campbell, 17 
North Audley Street, W. ; Secretary, General W. M. Lees, 17 North Audley 
Street, London, W. 

The Committee appeal for funds for the relief of Ladies who depend for their 
support on the proceeds of Irish property, but who, owina: to the depreciation in 
value of land and the non-receipt of their rents, have been reduced to absolute 
poverty. 

Office and Work Depot, 17 North Audley Street, London, W. 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 90 

The interests of the rich and poor can never be made a 
unit. Laws cannot be exactly fair to both. Financial re- 
sponsibility gives to man a standing and credit that neither 
character, skill, nor any other force can supply. All busi- 
ness rests upon a financial basis, and of necessity tangible 
possession must form the standard by which men are rated 
in the business world. In a thousand ways ownership of 
property is a passport to success and usefulness from which 
the propertyless are entirely debarred. No wholesome so- 
cial condition can possibly exist until each life becomes 
wedded to some financial entity that it can call its own. 
Advocate financial irregularities as they now exist, if we 
will, submit to them if we must, the fact remains that the 
condition is a constant menace to the common good. 

Financial differences when justly created and held in 
reasonable check strengthen the social order, but when al- 
lowed unlimited sway and power they invite social chaos. 
Those who represent wealth get more than their share of 
experience and become giants and monstrosities, while 
those who have nothing are denied the higher forms of ex- 
ercise and become pygmies. The successful are being con- 
stantly inspired to renewed vigor, while the unsuccessful 
are tempted to give up in despair. Through the influence 
of wealth upon one side and poverty upon the other, men 
become separated socially, religiously, and industrially. 
The one class become leaders, the other followers; one be- 
come proprietors, the other wage-earners ; one masters, the 
other servants; one landlords, the other tenants. One 
class grows, the other becomes blighted and dwarfed; one 
becomes strong, the other weak; one keeps interested and 
wide-awake, the other grows indifferent and apathetic. One 
class becomes as the mighty oaks of the forest whose roots 
are deeply sunk into the earth, their summits kissing the 
sunshine and defying the storm, while the other class Be- 
comes as the bramble and scrub that struggle for existence 
in the shade and dampness below. Men may consider such! 
conditions natural, but justice declares it a crime; the 
apologist may call it progress, but God pronounces it per- 
dition. 

When these conditions become fixed, as they are in Amer- 
ica to-day, there may be a remedy other than a division of 



tof 



100 OUR STATION'S NBEB. 

property, but if so it is as yet undiscovered. Not only ou]* 
own land, but the people of all the earth are waiting and 
longing for some way out of the thraldom of concentrated 
riches and diffused poverty. All over the earth mankind 
is divided into the classes and the masses — one dying of 
luxury and indolence, the other of ignorance and vice. To 
try to reconcile mankind to such an infamous portion is 
a crime. It is as much a duty to preach discontent among 
the people and lead them to a happier and better condi- 
tion when they are dying through the blighting effects of 
wealth and poverty as it is to preach conviction and re- 
pentance to a sin-cursed world. When a remedy is known, 
it is as much a sin not to proclaim it as it would be to 
withhold the Gospel of light from the realm of spiritual 
darkness. Indeed, these things are a part of religion. The 
reason why Christianity does not progress faster is because 
we ignore its forerunning requirements — ^the "way'^ is not 
prepared. 

If individual ownership were to become universal among 
those who are now journeymen and irresponsible wage- 
earners, an incalculable impetus would be given to handi- 
craft. It would tend to establish character and raise the 
standard of citizenship, and the public would be infinitely 
better served. Kot only are those who work entitled to the 
privilege of ownership, but the people have a right to ex- 
pect that what they purchase shall be produced under the 
best possible conditions. When men become owners as well 
as workers, manufactured goods and merchandise with a 
quality based upon personal honor will flood our markets. 
Industry, skill, and genius will then experience a new 
birth. The best in man will be aroused. Business will 
take to itself a soul. Men cannot render their best efforts 
unless the highest power of mind and will are called into 
action. The Golden Rule in business cannot be obeyed, 
nor can the highest achievements in service be attained, 
until every man is the master architect of his own fortune. 
If a factory, or store, or mill were operated by a hundred 
men, each one of whom were part owner, not only a hun- 
dred pairs of hands would toil, but the brain of a hundred 
individuals would think and plan, and a hundred families 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 101 

would be financially related and interested; all of which, 
beyond controversy, is necessary to secure the best service. 

With confidence permanently established, an abundance 
of money in circulation, v/ork for everybody, and every 
home a nucleus of wealth for larger growth, an era of un- 
precedented prosperity would be at hand. Compensation 
would not only be assured, but it would increase. Values 
would rise. Profits would be stable. Legions of marriages 
would take place. The natural channels of development 
and progress would be opened. Work would be abundant. 
The supply of workers would run short. The indolent 
and improvident would be forced into service. Tramps 
and industrial vagabonds would be shamed into action. 
Complaints about hard times, the misery of the poor, the 
extravagances of the rich, the slavery of labor, and the op- 
pressions of capital would cease. Everybody could afford 
good clothes. The excuses of the unfortunate and of the 
derelict would no longer prevail. The God-intended goal 
of mankind would be within reach. 

The sweet grace of charity, now so much abused, would 
fi.nd its normal sphere. Drunkenness would become an in- 
tolerable outrage. Begging would be a crime. Laziness, 
stupidity, and worthlessness would become transparent 
faults. Pessimism could well go out of business. Every- 
body could buy what they need and pay cash. The credit 
system, that abomination of modern business, could be 
wiped out. Doctors^ bills could be paid. New customs of 
business and rules of society could be adopted. The rich 
would cease to kill themselves through indolence and lux- 
ury, and the poor to die through overwork and the lack of 
necessaries. 

Eeligion and morality would reap a rich harvest. Pa- 
triotism would become enthroned and politics purified. 
Merit, and not money, would elevate men into office, and 
wholesale bribery would be impossible. Crime would be 
reduced to a minimum. Civilization, science, education, 
art, invention, and progress would center in the United 
States. 

A divide-up would inaugurate a practical age. Men 
would become independent. There would need be no more 
slaves, either social, industrial, or political. The honest 



10^ OUR NATIOI^'S NEED. 

convictions and the sincere opinions of men would no 
longer cower within the breast. 

No matter what might be said of the result of other 
measures, the effects of a divide-up and start-even are not 
a conjecture. As an issue in the nation it is more than a 
theory. It is human nature under the domination of com- 
mon sense. It is not the vague illusion of a dream, but 
the tangible application of cold facts. In its scope as an 
issue it would cover the entire country. It would give no 
man an advantage over another, nor would it forget a 
single person, no matter how obscure or helpless. 

It would be a measure the adoption of which would lift 
our national character to the highest plane possible in the 
present age of history. "Trust the people," said the im- 
mortal Wendell Phillips — "the wise and the ignorant, the 
good and the bad — with the greatest questions, and in the 
end you will educate the race. At the same time you se- 
cure, not perfect institutions, not necessarily good oneSj 
but the best institutions possible while human nature is the 
basis and the only material to build with." 



Hear this, O ye fhat swallow up the needy, even to make the 
poor of the land fail. ... In that day shall the fair virgins 
and young men faint for thirst. — Amos. 

Woe, then, to all who grind 

Their brethren of a common Father down! 
To all who plunder from the immortal mind 

Its bright and glorious crown! — Whittieb. 

The man who kindles the fire on the hearthstone of an honest 
and righteous home burns the best incense to liberty. — Henry 
W. Grady. 

For a child to be born to a life of poverty; to have to strug- 
gle for its bread almost from the cradle; to be doomed through 
youth and manhood to such a round of unremunerative employ- 
ment that age finds him without any resource from starvation 
except the precarious gleanings of the street or the cold com- 
munity charity of the poorhouse; to pass from birth to death, 
as millions do, engaged all the time in a sharp fight with his 
fellows for the bare necessaries of existence, is an unfair con- 
dition for which there is and must be a remedy. — H. W. Cadman. 

Until the immortal and God-like capacities of every human 
being that comes into the world are deemed more worthy, are 
watched more tenderly, than any other thing, no dynasty of men 
or form of government can stand or shall stand upon the face 
of the earth; and the force or the fraud which would seek to 
uphold them shall be but fetters of flax to bind the flame. — 
Horace Mann. 

Marriage establishes a relation of affections and interests 
which can in no other way be made to exist between two human 
beings. It creates the domestic fireside. It gives origin to the 
sacred relation of husband and wife, parent and child, brother 
and sister, and those endearing relations which arise from them. 
Strike out from the life of man all the hopes, interests, and 
motives which grow out of this relation, and what were left 
but a cheerless, a desolate, and a merely brutal existence? — 
Daniel Wise. 



104 



OUB NATION'S NEED. 105 



CHAPTEE YIIL 

A DIVIDE-UP WOULD GIVE THE YOUNG A CHANCE. 

A GREAT many useless and silly things have been said 
and written to young people. Enough advice is wasted 
every year over young men and young women to operate 
a millennium. 

Fathers and mothers buy books which portray in seraphic 
language the lives of such men as Washington, Webster, 
Lincoln, Clay, Garfield, Franklin, Edison, Peabody, and 
others, and take them home and say: "Here, my son, I 
have brought you a nice book which gives the life of a good 
and great man. Bead it carefully and profit by its teach- 
ings, and when you grow up I hope you will be a great 
man too." There is much truth in Longfellow's familiar 
verse : 

^'^Lives of great men all remind us 
We can malce our lives sublime. 
And, departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time."' 

This is beautiful sentiment, and all books illustrative 
of great lives are useful, but they are exceedingly limited 
in their application. They all lack a vital element — the 
inspiring force for present occasions. Not one man in a 
million can be a Washington, a Franklin, or a ISfapoleon. 
To study biographical history is both instructive and use- 
ful, but to turn the records of the ages and study the lives 
of heroes and their achievements for a whole year does not 
profit a young man so much as it does for him to catch a 
glimpse of his own mission and its highest possibilities for 
a single moment, or for him to draw off his coat, roll up 
his sleeves, and dig and strive toward those possibilities for 
a single day. 

Every child born upon American soil is entitled to three 
things: a good birth, a good training, and a fair oppor- 



106 OUR NATION'S NEED, 

tunity. But American parenthood has lost and ceased to 
convey its natural heritage. Through the deadening in- 
fluence of custom parenthood has become willing to throw 
one chance of success among a hundred of its sons and 
watch, with apparent satisfaction and composure, the 
scramble for the prize, laying the trophies of fame and 
fortune at the feet of him wha wins, but turning with cold 
forgetfulness from the ninety-and-nine unfortunates who 
must subsist upon the bitter herbs of defeat and despair. 

There are not far from 10,000,000 young men in the 
United States between the ages of eighteen and thirty. 
Every one of them was born for a purpose. They have the 
God-given right to demand that ten million opportunities 
be made a possibility. These opportunities should not be 
a deception or a dream, to lure to servitude and ruin, but 
there should be in each an assured livelihood and a fair 
measure of success. It should mean not only good food, 
good clothing, and comfortable shelter, but a home with all 
the endearment of the fireside, respectable social environ- 
ments such as encourage good citizenship, and reasonable 
prospects for old age. 

Of the 10,000,000 young mxcn in our nation, a large per- 
centage are constantly looking for something to do. A 
much larger number have been forced to forsake their own 
inclinations, bury their natural talents, and accept such 
means of livelihood as they could secure. Very few are 
given opportunity to choose their lifers work and enter 
upon it without being crippled through the domination of 
the money power. Nearly all of them are employed by 
others as wage-earners, only a small percentage becoming 
their own masters. 

As beginners, young men find almost every trade, busi- 
ness, and profession greatly overcrowded. There are too 
many mechanics, too many laborers, too many farmers, too 
many merchants, too many doctors, too many lawyers, too 
many everything. The time when young men could select 
a calling in harmony with their natural bent, enter upon 
its attending duties, settle down, build a home, establish a 
reputation among men, and live and prosper and finally 
retire and enjoy the fruits of energy and usefulness seems 
to have passed. 



OUR NATION'a NEED, 107 

To bring up children as is becoming the American cus- 
tom, and when they have grown to maturity- send them out 
wholesale into the world where conditions are such that all 
are severely tested and only a few can possibly succeed, is 
a species of political and social barbarism in as great need 
of correction as was the heathenism that gave its offspring 
as food to the monsters in the river Ganges. 

Were a divide-up of property made, the circumstances 
and opportunities of the young would undergo a revolu- 
tion. Every young man in the nation would be worth 
$1,000. Every young woman would be worth an equal 
amount. Put together, the two amounts would make a 
very respectable beginning for a newly married couple. 

There are at present about 500,000 marriages annually 
in the United States, while over 800,000 young couples ar- 
rive at a marriageable age. There are over 3,000,000 
young men in the nation who would like to get married. 
The chief reason why they do not is because they cannot 
afford it. They cannot support wives. Their prospects 
will not justify the venture. It is as natural for a young 
man to fall in love and marry as it is for a woman, and to 
be defeated by circumstances is a direct blow to the highest, 
noblest, and best in manhood. 

If a divide-up should bring to young men faith in them- 
selves, an assurance of their ability to support wives and 
families, and a substantial trust in the future, there would 
be 2,000,000 more marriages within two .years than will 
otherwise occur. No result of genuine and established 
prosperity is more plainly foreseen. 

It is not generally appreciated to what extent business 
conditions affect matrimony. Nothing else so regulates 
the number of marriages like good or hard times. In a 
recent article entitled "The American GirFs Chances of 
Matrimony,^^ in the Ladies* Home Journal (March, 1899), 
Prof. D. R. McAnally states that in good times the num- 
ber of marriages has gone up to 26 per 1,000, while during 
hard times it has gone down to 15 per 1,000, which shows, 
as he says, "a tremendous rise or falling off^' due entirely 
to existing prosperity or the lack of it. To claim that the 
improved conditions incident to a divide-up of property 
would cause at least 2,000,000 marriages in two years more 



108 OUR NATION'S NEED, 

than will otherwise occur is placing the number, based 
upon actual experience, below rather than above well- 
founded indications. 

A signally important fact is that the young men and 
young women who avoid marriage on account of lack of 
prospects are, as a rule, those whose marriage would mean 
much to society. It is the careful, the cautious, and the 
thoughtful of both sexes who avoid matrimony unless its 
responsibilities can be fairly and faithfully met. Few are 
the parents who will willingly give a daughter in wedlock 
when nothing is visible but poverty and privation. In the 
midst of such blighted prospects as inevitably prevail un- 
der our present industrial conditions, it is those who re- 
gard the marriage relations the most sacred, its duties the 
most binding, and its issues the most vital and precious 
that naturally avoid it and live unnatural lives in celibacy. 
Some one has said that society should organize itself and 
prohibit improvident marriages for its own protection. For 
reasons infinitely more rational should these millions, 
whose manhood and womanhood are fated through the 
domination of greed, organize and as one solid force de- 
mand that they be no longer doomed to celibate exile. Every 
young man and every young woman in the nation should 
become consecrated to the cause. It would be a conquest 
over which the Shekinah of heaven would rest and a vic- 
tory over which the angels would rejoice. 

These 2,000,000 marriages would mean 2,000,000 homes, 
with all that ownership and fair prospects insure. Each 
one of these homes would be a nucleus for enlargement 
and radiation, and of far greater contributing value than 
where marriage means, as it too often does now, simply 
two souls joining in a struggle against adversity and the 
caprice of perverted enterprise. 

The marriages which now take place would also mean 
far more than they at present do or otherwse will. The re- 
vival of business that would result from marriages alone 
Tinder the improved conditions of a divide-up would pro- 
duce an unparalleled revolution in manufacture and trade. 
Every woodman and miller, brick maker and plasterer, 
surveyor and architect, carpenter and builder, painter and 
decorator, would be overwhelmed with work. Every man.^ 



OUB NATION'8 NEED. 109 

Tifactory of furniture, carpets, stoves, tinware, glassware, 
silverware, bridal goods, chinaware, sewing rnachineSj 
clothing, dry goods, cooking utensils, household goods, 
tools for workmen and machinery to make — every work- 
man of every craft and every mill of every kind in the 
United States, working night and day, could not supply 
the demand. Genuine prosperity would come. Natural 
progress would take place. The divine order of things 
would begin to operate. It would be God's way of build- 
ing a nation. It is the home and the home life of the 
people which keep men and machinery busy. Preemi- 
nently is this true. It is the family life — civilization 
wedded to its affections and ideals — which supports the 
farm, the store, the factory, the school, the Church, and 
the professional man. When a young man and young 
woman marry and establish a fireside, they at once become 
a factor in the community which is created in no other 
way. 

A divide-up and start-even would, if carried out in its 
true spirit, dower all young women. This would be a 
measure exceedingly desirable and one that should prevail 
everywhere. Its moral and social effect would be incal- 
culable. Our civilization will not get far removed from 
barbarism until young women, when they arrive at mar- 
riageable age, are given a respectable dowry. For young 
girls to be forced out into the world moneyless and friend- 
less, as thousands are in our rich and beautiful land, is as 
disgraceful as it is wicked. In the land of Canaan women 
possessed a dowry. Of them Solomon said: "Every wise 
woman buildeth her house." A desirable and just condi- 
tion would be where a young woman should bring a home 
and a young man a vocation and a business to the marriage 
altar. 

If a divide-up and start-even were to cause 2,000,000 
marriages more than will otherwise occur, the effect upon 
business would be tremendous. 

In the following list an approximation of the expendi- 
tures of 2,000,000 married couples for ten years is given. 
Some couples would spend more and some less, but the 
general average here implied is within reasonable bounds. 
It is supposed that each man and woman owned $1,000 
at the start and that they lived during financial prosperity: 



110 OUR NATION'S NEED. 



BUSIIfESS CAUSED IE TEN YEARS BY 2,000,000 MARRIAGES. 

2,000,000 men invest $1,000 each in 

business $2,000,000,000 

2,000,000 engagement rings at $10. . . 20,000,000 

4,000,000 wedding outfits at $50 200,000,000 

2,000,000 wives invest in homes 

$1,500 each ($1,000 cash, $500 in 

Building and Loan Association) . 2,000,000,000 

2,000,000 wedding fees at $10 20,000,000 

2,000,000 weddings at $20 40,000,000 

2,000,000 suits of furniture at $50.. 100,000,000 

2,000,000 bedroom suits at $40 80,000,000 

2,000,000 bedroom suits at $20 40,000,000 

2,000,000 sitting-room suits at $25.. 50,000,000 

100,000,000 yards of carpet at 60 cents. 60,000,000 

100,000,000 yards of carpet at 40 cents. 40,000,000 

40,000,000 yards of oil cloth at 50 cents 20,000,000 

4,000,000 rugs at $2 8,000,000 

2,000,000 parlor stoves at $15 30,000,000 

4,000,000 beds at $12 48,000,000 

2,000,000 collections of bric-a-brac, 

etc., at $20 40,000,000 

2,000,000 clocks at $10 20,000,000 

2,000,000 building and loan, princi- 
pal and interest 1,120,000,000 

1,000,000 bicycles at $25 25,000,000 

6,000,000 mirrors at $4 24,000,000 

2,000,000 dining tables at $10 , 20,000,000 

2,000,000 table outfits at $25 50,000,000 

2,000,000 sets of tinware, etc., at $5. . 10,000,000 

5,000,000 baby outfits at $10 50,000,000 

1,500,000 baby carriages at $6 9,000,000 

2,000,000 tax bills— ten years— $100 

each 200,000,000 

2,000,000 gold and silver ware at $20. 40,000,000 

2,000,000 doctors' bills— $100 each... 200,000,000 

2,000,000 medicine bills— $25 each... 50,000,000 
2^000,000 contributions— church and 

benevolence ....,, , , 1,200,000,000 



TIB NA TION'8 NEED. HI 

2,000,000 amusements — ten years — 

$12.50 per year 250,000,000 

2,000,000 family Bibles at $8 16,000,000 

Newspapers, magazines, books, etc... 300,000,000 

2,000,000 building and loan stock. . . . 300,000,000 

2,000,000 insurance, societies, etc 300,000,000 

100,000 pianos at $300 30,000,000 

300;000 organs at $80 25,000,000 

2,000,000 grocery bills— $100 per year 2,000,000,000 
2,000,000 Christmas supplies — ten 

years 300,000,000 

2,000,000 incidentals, pin-money for 

wife, pocket-money for husband 

and children, clothing, hats, bon- 
nets, shoes, dry goods, sundries, 

fancy goods, pictures, photos, 

car fare, repairs and general 

expenses ■ 4,300,000,000 

Cash on hand, same as at the beginning. 

4,000,000 adults at $50 each 200,000,000 

5,000,000 children at $25 each .. 125,000,000 

Total for ten years $16,000,000,000 

The property and income of these 2,000,000 families 
during the ten years are represented as follows: The in- 
come of each is placed at $600 per annum, a very low esti- 
mate for a period of marked business activity such as would 
follow a divide-up and start-even. 

PROPERTY AND USTCOME POR TEiq- TEARS. 

2,000,000 men started with $1,000 

each $2,000,000,000 

2,000,000 women started with $1,000 

each 2,000,000,000 

Income of each family $600 per year. . $12,000,000,000 

Total $16,000,000,000 

At the end of ten years the value of their property maj; 
J)e fairly estimated as follows i 



lia OUR NATION '8 NEED. 



VALUE OF PROPERTY AT END OF TEN YEARS. 

2,000,000 homes, original cost $3,000,000,000 

Increase in value 1,000,000,000 

2,000,000 businesses, farms, etc., cost.. 2,000,000,000 

Increase in value 2,000,000,000 

2,000,000 lots of furniture, etc. (less 

than cost) 500,000,000 

Insurance, building and loan, and 

other interests 500,000,000 



Total possessions of 2,000,000 families 

(9,000,000 persons) $9,000,000,000 

Following the same principle that would exist in a gen- 
eral divide, the property would be represented as follows : 



REPRESENTATION OF PROPERTY AT END OF TEN YEARS. 

2,000,000 husbands, $1,000 each $2,000,000,000 

2,000,000 wives, $1,000 each 2,000,000,000 

5,000,000 children, $1,000 each 5,000,000,000 

Total $9,000,000,000 

In addition to the above, if each adult and each child 
represented the original allotment in cash the families 
would have $325,000,000 cash in bank. 

If the foregoing average were maintained, these 2,000,- 
000 families would, during ten years, cause the circulation 
of $12,000,000,000. Supposing that these expenditures 
passed through three hands aside from the producer, it 
would comprise a total business of $36,000,000,000. If 
profits amounted to 20 per cent, the business would sup- 
port over 1,000,000 families. These figures, are not over- 
drawn, and if our manufacturing and commercial interests 
were commensurate with the unlimited resources of the 
country they would be more than realized. If the essential 
reform were adopted to produce the .opportunities^ the 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 113 

marriages would take place and the subsequent develop- 
ments would surely follow. 

These 2,000,000 young men are now not only unable to 
get married, but they must struggle to earn a living. In- 
stead of becoming husbands and fathers, they are indus- 
trial slaves and are forced to eke out an unnatural exist- 
ence. They are being forced to accept whatever offers. 
Their environments are, in the main, vicious. Legions of 
them, in consequence, grow clandestine in morals and dis- 
sipated in habits. Thousands of them are a menace rather 
than a help to the nation. They have been robbed of their 
birthright, and thus, shorn of prospects and ambition, they 
complacently surrender to the cruel terms of fate. 

An additional fact is that of the 5,000,000 marriages 
that will occur anyhow during the next ten years, a great 
majority of them would be made under circumstances in- 
finitely more favorable if a divide-up should take place. 

From a business standpoint, the same facts that apply 
to those who cannot m^arry will also apply with much force 
to the multitudes of those who will enter matrimony. Un- 
der present conditions a large share of these marriages 
mean very little to business. In too many cases it is sim- 
ply another struggle instead of a home; another failure 
instead of another success. 

A still further consideration is that there are a legion of 
young couples and a legion not so young already married, 
but who are wrestling with poverty and the vicissitudes of 
wage-earning, who would start afresh under the new and 
improved conditions. A good percentage of the 12,000,000 
families in the nation would recast their domestic and so- 
cial life. Growing childhood would also breathe a new 
atmosphere and experience a new hope. 

These 2,000,000 extra marriages, in connection with the 
improved circumstances and consuming power of those 
who are married, would cause a complete revolution in the 
industrial and business world. 

Young women and girls would leave factory, store, and 
office. The sweet charms of womanly virtue would no 
longer be sacrificed upon the altars of mammonism. Wo- 
manhood would seek its true realm — the home and the 
fireside. 



114 OUR NATION'8 NEED. 

There would also be a revolution in the training of chil- 
dren. As marriage would become the natural event of 
maturing womanhood, girls would be trained in the duties 
and arts of home life rather than to venture amid the sharp 
rivalries of the store and the degrading duties of the fac- 
tory and shop. Trained in the handicraft of the home, 
they would bring to the embrace of the lover and to the 
marriage altar the accomplishments becoming a wife and 
the sweet modesty and affection of their mothers, instead 
of that strange mixture of mockeries now far too common. 

From factory and store, from school-room and office thus 
made vacant and short of help, would come an unprece- 
dented demand for men. Every idle man, young or old, 
would be absorbed. Millions of men would be needed to 
meet the new demand. The supply would be entirely in- 
adequate. Every man who is now accepting some subter- 
fuge at starvation wages could find investment for his 
capital and honorable employment both for hands and 
brain. 

The 1,000,000 men who are now engaged in or em- 
ployed by the liquor business, killing their fellows and 
damning themselves, could abandon their accursed voca- 
tion and find a business both elevating and profitable. 
And even all of these would not satisfy the demand for 
men. The call for workers would cross the seas. The 
best mechanics and the best intellects of the world would 
find America a choice field in which to live and labor. 

These marriages will take place and these changes 
will exist when our sons and daughters are given the op- 
portunities which belong to them. The growth of the 
nation and of the people here suggested is a natural one. 
How infinitely better it would be to thus utilize our 
young manhood at home than to send it to suffer and 
die in a war of conquest. That our national lawmakers 
have totally ignored the subject shows that genuine 
statesmanship has ceased to exist. Man clings to noth- 
ing as he does to home, and nothing will give skill to his 
hand and temper his soul more surely than to become a 
husband and father. The noblest and most precious in 
the human heart seldom finds expression unless en- 
shrined around the family fireside. 



OUn NATION'S NEED, 115 

Various measures may bring prosperity for a season, 
but unless the avenues to success and usefulness are kept 
open to new recruits and to the young stagnation will in- 
evitably follow. In the young are vested the welfare and 
destiny of a people. When they are properly trained 
and given their legitimate birthright honor and plenty 
will be theirs, and the nation in their hands will be safe 
while the promises of God endure. 

The question naturally imposes itself: 7s it the duty 
of the young manhood of the nation to compel a divide- 
up and start-even'^ 

To develop an issue involving the readjustment of 
over $50,000,000,000 in property would stand without a 
parallel in all history; and surely it is a serious matter 
for the younger generation of voters to wield a weapon 
so powerful and far-reaching as this. But it is to be re- 
membered that young men represent the inherent 
strength and vital force of the nation. They have al- 
ways been the willing factor in the conquests of war, 
and it is for them to be the impelling force in the tri- 
umphs of peace. 

If a divide-up and start-even is practicable, desirable, 
and just, it is the imperative duty of young men to free- 
ly enlist in behalf of the measure and loyally follow it 
to success. They alone possess the essential force. To 
them the magnitude of the cause only makee it a more 
sacred trust. 

About 1,000,000 young men assume the privileges of 
citizenship each year. That upon them are imposed 
tremendous responsibilities admits of no denial. These 
young men are strong not only in physical and moral 
force, but in political power. Their political strength is 
one of their chief talents; to use this talent is one of 
their first and highest duties. If political corruption 
can be destroyed, it is their duty to destroy it. If indus- 
try is enslaved, it is their duty to give it liberty. If 
wealth and poverty require equalizing, it is their duty 
to bring it about. For them to remain indifferent is to 
ignore a sacred duty. For them to refuse to enlist is to 
commit a sin. 

There the in our country nearly 6,000,000 voters 



116 OVR NATION'S NEED. 

under thirty years of age, and a decided majority of our 
citizens are under forty. These millions of men are in the 
full vigor of manhood^s prime. In a manner, challenging 
every other consideration, they have claims upon the 
natural resources of the country. Young men are not re- 
sponsible for their birth, their training, or their inherited 
environments. But they are responsible to the full extent 
of their power for the correction of unjust conditions and 
for the overthrow of existing evils, be they financial, social, 
or political. 

It is also the duty of young men and those in the prime 
of life to honestly provide and wisely plan for their families 
and their posterity. They possess the absolute and unde- 
niable right to demand that no unjust force or usurping 
power interpose between the people in common and a fair 
share of those advantages and comforts with which our coun- 
try so richly abounds. Present conditions and customs have 
grown to be a direct and constant conspiracy against the 
young and beginner generally. An oligarchy, powerful, 
aggressive, and desperate, usurps the natural rights of all, 
and the young more than any other class are the sufferers. 
In the warring rivalries of business the great majority of 
young men are little more than contrabands — industrial 
commodities submissively cowering to the kings and mag- 
nates of enterprise. Legions of men never even so much 
as dream of their God-intended birthright. They grow 
old struggling against fate, striving against the inevitable, 
and go down to the grave hoping in the face of doom. In 
justice to themselves and to their kin and kind, it is the 
duty of young men to demand a readjustment of the na- 
tion's possessions. For them to ignore their duty is a 
public crime. For them to falter or lose courage is to dis- 
honor and forsake the flag. 

But it is not through personal interest that the needful 
motive force will come to the younger generations of citi- 
zens. Deeply as they may desire to better their own con- 
dition or secure their individual rights, they would not act 
or stand firm for these alone. It is unselfish devotion, sin- 
cere patriotism, and love of justice — the wedding of the 
heart to a righteous cause — that arouse the younger forces 
to activity and service. Deeply as these millions of voters 



OUR NATION^ 8 NEED. 117 

desire to better their condition, still more profoundly do 
they desire a happier lot for the country of their birth. 
While they are patiently waiting for the advent of a new 
era, they stand ready to volunteer in behalf of a genuinely 
beneficent issue, no matter what sacrifice it may require. 
All they need is wise leadership and the inspiring evi- 
dences of humanity's cause. 

Profoundly true, also, is it that in the midst of grave 
responsibilities none are more loyal than the young. Even 
in times of national crises none are so unflinching and 
brave. Their patriotism and loyalty are always the pro- 
tecting bulwark and the redeeming power in the hour of 
peril. 



Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. — Paul. 

" O clear-eyed Faith and Patience, thou 

So calm and strong! 
Lend strength to weakness, teach us how 
The sleepless eyes of God look through 

This night of wrong." — Whittieb. 

Half of the cruelty in the world is the direct result of stupid 
incapacity to put one's self in the other man's place. — John 

FiSKE. 

Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom of the good, for 
the good man desires nothing which a just law will interfere 
with. — Froude. 

Poverty is a prolific source of thriftlessness, intemperance, 
vice, and crime. When no ray of hope lights up the future, 
demoralization soon follows. — W. W. Eoss. 

I do not call that state of society progressive where moral 
and spiritual truths are forgotten or disregarded in the triumphs 
of a brilliant material life. — John Lord. 

It is not often that great accumulations of wealth do any- 
body good. They usually spoil the happiness of two genera- 
tions — one in the getting and one in the spending. — J. G. Hol- 
land. 

It seems to me a great truth, that human things cannot stand 
on selfishness, mechanical utilities, economics, and law courts; 
that if there be not a religious element in the relations of men, 
such relations are miserable and doomed to ruin. — Carlyle. 

For myself, twenty-one years of study and observation have 
convinced me that poverty is the prime cause of intemperance, 
and that misery is the mother and hereditary appetite the father 
of the drink hallucination. — Frances Willaed. 



118 



UR iVTi TION '8 NEED, 119 



CHAPTER IX. 

BUSINESS AFFAIRS COULD BE KECAST AND RENOVATED. 

Business is in need of a general honse-cleaning. So is 
the realm of industry. Nothing could prove more whole- 
some than to subject our whole system of enterprise to a 
complete renovation and pruning. 

There are some kinds of business which need to be up- 
rooted and prohibited forever. There are many enslaving 
features connected with both business and industry^ due 
to abnormal conditions, intense rivalries, and other causes 
which need readjusting. Under the present strain of com- 
petition multitudes of men do things, in business and in 
labor, which their manhood would indignantly spurn under 
more favorable conditions. Men, both rich and poor, are 
to-day serving hard task-masters. Money has become king ; 
and, like all heartless despots, it is tyrannical and cruel. 
It wields the scepter of power over the business man and 
manufacturer and demands that they bow the neck or quit 
the field; it stands over the laboring man and mechanic 
and demands that they bow the knee or starve. 

No matter what philosophical ideas we may have con- 
ceived regarding mankind, it is blessed with much that is 
intrinsically good and aspiring. Man was made perfect. 
His original and normal nature is pure and good ; and al- 
though warped and scarred by sin, he is crawling and 
climbing upward, however slowly it may be, toward an 
earthly Eden. 

Men do not sell liquor because they want to do so ; nor 
do they drink it from genuine choice. Men do not work on 
Sunday because they prefer labor to rest. Men do not live 
in idleness and indolence and ignorance because they pre- 
fer these things to industry and thrift and intelligence. 
Kot thousands, but millions, of men are doing things that 
their consciences and better sense condemn, because they 
feel forced to do them. 



120 OUR NATION '8 NEED. 

There are multitudes of men in the liquor business who 
would be as glad to get out of it as the most rabid temper- 
ance reformer would be to see the whole license system 
destroyed. If manufacturers and dealers in liquor could 
abandon their vocations without great financial loss and 
find a business more ennobling and respectable and equally 
remunerative, the most of them would gladly do so. That 
they do not seek a more desirable business in these times 
of extremely limited opportunity is not surprising. 

The secret of correct living is in avoiding temptation ; it 
is only the rare conscience that can stand erect in the midst 
of it. It does not appear that saloon keepers are very dif- 
ferent from other people. Most of them at heart are hon- 
orable men. They inwardly deplore their calling, but their 
invested interests and their dismantling associations hold 
them firmly grasped. The business of liquor-selling is 
almost as destructive to the will and as alienating to the 
life as the drink habit itself. It is quite as impossible to 
prevent men from selling liquor when they have once be- 
gun it as it is to prohibit drunkenness when the habit of 
drinking has been formed. 

During a divide-up of the property of the United States 
among all the people the entire business of the manufac- 
ture and sale of alcoholic liquors as a beverage could he 
abandoned and forever condemned without loss to any one. 
Financially the loss need not be felt. 

By recognizing the fact that it is the people who give 
the nation a money value, and not business and stores and 
manufactories, it is easily seen that a whole branch of 
business, no matter how large, when that business is not a 
necessary part of civilization, can be dispensed with and 
no decrease in values occur. If an injurious business 
were thus eradicated values would actually increase. 

The manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors as a bev- 
erage as carried on in our country is a gigantic curse. 
That it deserves to be destroyed is the sincere belief of an 
overwhelming majority of the people. For many years a 
widespread effort has been made to arouse public senti- 
ment upon the subject. Forces — religious, political, social, 
fraternal, and educational — representing a large ^hare of 
the best manhood and womanhood in the nation are organ- 



UB NA TION 'S NEED. 121 

ized and for years have diligently labored to curtail the 
drink habit and prevent the sale of intoxicants among the 
people. But the results have been disappointing. The 
traffic not only survives, but continues with increasing 
magnitude. 

There are many reason why these efforts, strong and 
sincere as they are, have accomplished so little. Immense 
wealth is invested in the liquor traffic. It gives employ- 
ment to nearly 1,000,000 persons. The annual business 
done amounts to over $1,000,000,000. It is exceptionally 
profitable. Those who buy liquor are among the most 
persistent and consistent customers in the world. It fur- 
nishes a chief source of revenue to support the Govern- 
ment. Through the avenue of license it helps to school 
our children, to pay our taxes, and make business for the 
politician. It is a unit of force — a dominating power — 
in politics, while its enemies are divided and confused. 

To prohibit the manufacture and sale of liquors as a 
beverage, as matters now stand is well-nigh impossible. As 
a single issue in politics it is at a great disadvantage. If 
carried out, the majority of those engaged in the business 
would be reduced to poverty. If turned out into the world, 
with other lines of business greatly overcrowded, the most 
of them would find it next to impossible to earn a living. 
True it is that $1,000,000,000 annually spent in the 
saloons would be turned into legitimate channels, and that 
other kinds of business would enormously improve; but 
the fact remains that it would be a great sacrifice to the 
liquor interests, a loss which, to the end, will be desperate- 
ly and bitterly opposed. 

But during a divide-up of property the whole liquor 
business could be cast aside, and all those engaged in it 
provided for as thoroughly as though it had been retained. 
Every person and every family would receive an allotment. 
The improved business conditions would insure a prosper- 
ous livelihood to all, and the social relations of liquor 
dealers and their families would be infinitely improved. 
There is no reason why the liquor men, who usually op- 
pose moral reforms, should not, through self-interest, view 
with favor and work and vote to secure the destruction of 
their business if its overthrow should be accompanied by 



122 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

the compensating overtures involved in a "universal division 
of property. 

The liquor interests of the United States are rapidly be- 
coming absorbed by foreign capital, and a large majority 
of saloon keepers and bartenders would be better off 
financially, socially, and industrially after a divide-up 
had taken place than they are now. Considered from 
every standpoint, perhaps no class of persons would be 
greater gainers than liquor sellers, saloon keepers, and bar- 
tenders. 

Another enterprise in need of legal subjection or uproot- 
ing entirely is the secret or patent medicine business. Dur- 
ing a divide-up of property all existing patents and copy- 
rights would expire. Then every secret in the manufacture 
of medicine would be made known. Opportunity would 
exist for a long-needed reform regarding secret nostrums 
in medicine, in food products, and other useful commodi- 
ties. Few things need correcting so much. While many 
of these highly advertised articles possess genuine merit, 
the fact remains that the people are being swindled upon 
every side. Many secret medicines are worthless, others 
create a habit for drugs that enslave, and not a few are 
positively harmful. Their use costs the American people 
hundreds of millions in money every year. That their 
sale goes on unrestricted by intelligent oversight is a pub- 
lic reproach. Viewed in the proper light, the patent medi- 
cine business is more in need of legal restriction than the 
liquor business. Our entire system of medicine, including 
allied enterprises, needs revolutionizing. Properly con- 
ducted, the transformation could be systematically and 
thoroughly done. Suppose such a reform, cost fifty or even 
a hundred millions in money: it would be money well 
spent. Congress might appoint a national commission com- 
posed of one physician and one pharmacist in each county 
in the United States to perform the task. Every fact in 
medicine and every secret in manufacture could be sub- 
mitted to this committee. Lists of questions could be pre- 
pared regarding every remedy and every disease, and these 
lists submitted for replies to every physician and druggist 
in the nation. In this way a consensus of opinion of the 
entire medical fraternity might be secured and the real 



OUn NATION ^8 NEED. 123 

value of every remedy and the best remedies for every dis- 
ease made known. A new system of medicine would thus 
be evolved, based upon actual and up-to-date experience, 
representing every section of the nation and every school 
of medicine. 

The investigation would include not only every drug, 
but every formula and secret medicine. The good could be 
retained and in the future compounded by any druggist, 
and the worthless and injurious condemned and cast aside. 
If ^^Soothing Syrup,'^ "Castoria,'' or "Celery Compound'^ 
are the best for the purpose that can be devised, they would 
find an official place among medicinal compounds and be 
kept for sale at all drug stores in any quantity at a much 
less price than they now cost. If they are injurious and 
worthless the people would find it out. A new Pharma- 
copoeia and Dispensatory would follow, giving official 
recognition of the best of everything in the form of medi- 
cine. Any druggist could prepare any medicine. The 
best combinations would be known. Every physician would 
have the entire field of medicine open before him, and he 
could prescribe exactly the article best indicated. In short, 
the stock of medicines in drug stores would conform to 
the new official standards, and embrace every desirable 
medical agent. Under the new order of things prepara- 
tions could be officially examined by public experts and a 
standard of purity guaranteed which is impossible so long 
as secret remedies are used. 

The secret feature of the medicine business is unscien- 
tific and can well be abandoned. If there exists a specific 
for any disease, it is a moral crime for any man to con- 
ceal the fact. Laws which protect such secrets are inde- 
fensible. Yet about 75 per cent, of the medicine used in 
this nation is of a proprietary nature. Thousands of 
remedies are advertised with an extravagance simply as- 
tounding. Perhaps more people are frightened into sick- 
ness by reading advertisements than are cured by the 
remedies they laud so highly. In no other realm are so 
many schemes launched forth. ISTowhere else is fraud so 
rampant. Let a secret medicine meet success, and soon it 
has imitations a dozen deep. The shelves of the drug store 
groan through their multiplication. Nostrums of a pro- 



124 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

fessional kind so bewilder the physician that the practice 
of medicine is losing the technical range it once enjoyed. 
Pharmaceutical manufacturers flood physicians' offices with 
samples of their semi-secret compounds, and a large part 
of the medicines prescribed by doctors is in reality secret 
or patent medicines. Their knowledge of them at best is 
imperfect and obscure. 

The injustice and injuries of the secret medicine busi- 
ness have never been fully appreciated. Their almost uni- 
versal use is to be greatly deplored, as much harm in- 
evitably results. On account of them the usefulness of 
physicians is greatly handicapped. They are expensive. 
They have almost ceased to be a profit to the druggist. 
Their use is never scientific and conduces to ignorance and 
imaginary results. With certain exceptions they are recom- 
mended far beyond the range of their actual merits. Their 
advertisements disfigure almost every highway and land- 
scape. They trespass with cunning solicitation over the 
threshold of almost every physician's ofiice. In newspaper, 
in almanac, circular, and booklet, and in language im- 
moral, untruthful, yet beguiling, they invade almost every 
fireside. No war is here waged against the sale of medicine 
in any form. The aim is simply to force the business to 
yield to present needs and the common interests of all. 
The secrecy, the deception, the evils connected with the 
business should be suppressed. The composition and work- 
ing formula should be required upon every package offered 
for sale. The health and lives of the people are too 
precious to be sacrificed for the sake of greed at the ex- 
pense of the honorable name of medicine. 

When the use of medicine shall thus be reduced to a true 
science and its practical application to a system, a new 
era in therapeutics and hygiene would open up before us. 
The prevention of disease would, more than now, become 
the chief aim of the physician. Institutions would rapidly 
multiply for the treatment of defects of the body and 
mind. Contagious diseases would be driven out by isola- 
tion. Homes would exist where those affected with can- 
cer, tuberculosis, and other loathsome maladies could be 
cared for and isolated from the public at large. Some of 
the diseases of modern times are greater scourges than 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 125 

war. Their eradication should be of paramount concern. 
When sanitation rises to its proper level, the physician, 
rather than the lawyer, will become the consulting author- 
ity in municipal and public affairs. 

Under an organized system measures which promote or 
insure the healthful development of the race could easily 
be adopted. Infinitely more than what is possible now, 
laws, and that still more potent factor, a wholesome public 
sentiment, would restrain unwise marriages. In a multi- 
tude of ways the national physique would be promoted and 
improved. Health, strength, and beauty would become a 
national characteristic, and the physical nature, now so 
neglected, would acquire its wonted perfection and become 
a chief element of the glory and symmetry of future 
progress. 

The manufacture and sale of tobacco might also he re- 
stricted to the narrowest limits. The manufacture and sale 
of cigarettes could weU be prohibited entirely. The sale of 
tobacco in any form to children should be prohibited by 
stringent laws. The evil effects of tobacco upon growing 
boys are disastrous. No measure could be more salutary 
in results than to entirely prevent its use among all per- 
sons under legal adult age. No conviction regarding so- 
ciety is growing more rapidly or becoming more deeply 
established than that the use of tobacco among the young 
threatens the deterioration of the race. When used by such 
it tends to dwarf the body, sap the intellect, and undermine 
the moral nature. 

What is true regarding the use of liquor applies also to 
the use of tobacco. Men do not smoke and chew because 
they actually desire to do so; it is through the enslaving 
force of habit. The majority of those addicted to its use 
regret that they ever learned it. Its greatest enemies may 
be found among its most hopeless victims. But so long 
as the sight of it, its smoke and its smell invade and satu- 
rate their pathway they are its slaves. Were an election 
to be held to decide whether or not all tobacco should be 
destroyed and its growth prohibited forever, and only those 
who use it be allowed to vote, there are reasons for believ- 
ing that the weed would be condemned by a veritable 
Waterloo. But victims of an evil habit, like slaves to otheE 



126 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

things, seldom voluntarily rebel; yet when once set free 
they profoundly rejoice in their liberty. 

During a divide-up of property all gambling devices 
could he collected and destroyed and their use in the future 
prohibited. Under present conditions nothing but the most 
flagrant and transparent fraud is amenable to the law. 
The struggle for bread is so intense that if a man can find 
a subsistence and feed and shelter his family, a marked 
degree of crookedness is allowed and condoned. Actual 
frauds, if quasi-plausible, can exist and flourish upon 
every side, with no one to molest or make afraid. It is 
not true, however, that the people like to be humbugged. 
But it is true that the vast majority of the people are hon- 
est, and being upright themselves they believe everybody 
else so; and their credulity exposes them to the cunning 
schemes of the impostor. 

During a divide-up pernicious literature could he easily 
confiscated and hurned. We are becoming a rival of France 
in vile literature, and the looseness of our laws is becom- 
ing a reproach before the world. The sickening details of 
crime and the illustrated horrors of blood-and-thunder 
stories, circulated, aye, sown over the country broadcast, 
are a crime against young manhood and morals that will 
surely reap a disastrous harvest unless the iniquity be sup- 
pressed. Hundreds of tons of such literature are sent out 
every year and read with an interest that is unbounded. 
To stop this poisonous assault upon developing minds is a 
duty that cannot be safely ignored. 

A divide-up and start-even wouldj more than any other 
measure settle the Sunday rest question. When men be- 
come their own masters Sunday work will largely cease. 
When they become more impressed with responsibility 
Sunday desecration will greatly diminish. Exceedingly 
few are the men who work on Sunday through choice. 
Perhaps there is not one. The fact that hundreds of thou- 
sands of men work Sundays simply shows the despotism of 
capital over labor. Sabbath desecration, about which so 
much is said, is not so much the result of willfulness as it 
2s of debilitating environments for six days and demoral- 
izing temptation on the seventh. Sunday will be kept 
.when its proper observance is made easj;, and a large share 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 127 

of mankind will never keep it otherwise. Men are apt to 
regard laws which enforce moral principles as tyrannical, 
and they will revolt until the legal commands visibly con- 
sort with the people's best interests, when they will yield 
and obey with filial devotion. The Sunday newspapers, 
the Sunday trains, and other financial operations on Sun- 
day are not in response to a genu.ine demand. Were the 
people to become their own masters and able to otherwise 
afford recreation and entertainment, Sunday enterprise 
would be reduced to a trifle. 

A divide-up of property would entirely reconcile capital 
and labor. They would become a unit. Strikes and lock- 
outs would be made impossible. Some of the gravest ques- 
tions asking for settlement pertain to capital and labor. 
Many vital differences exist between employers and the 
employed, and new phases almost daily complicate the 
labor problem. 

Under our present system improved machinery is be- 
coming a formidable rival of wage-earning labor.. While 
labor-saving machinery favors civilization, it is a source 
of constant anxiety to those whose handicraft it threatens 
to supplant. It is claimed that enough labor-saving ma- 
chinery is invented each year to supplant about 300,000 
workmen if put into use. ''Labor-saving machinery versus 
the laboring man'' has already become one of the very 
greatest questions to be solved. Franklin, himself a great 
inventor, prophesied that in time there would not be over 
five hours' work daily for men on account of labor-saving 
devices. To settle this question right new power must be 
given the laboring man. He must have a voice where he is 
now dumb. Inventions should bless all, not a few; and 
above all they should benefit those whose muscle they sup- 
plant and whose toil they make more productive and easy. 
But such is not now the result. Too often they mean more 
wealth to capital and enforced idleness and poverty to the 
laborer. 

The remedy for questions involving capital and labor 
is not arbitration, not profit-sharing, not strikes and depre- 
dations, but an honest and thorough revolution of the en- 
tire industrial system. For capital to dominate over 
human lives as a wholesale and national custom is diaboli- 



128 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

cal in practice and radically wrong in principle. To en- 
deavor to reconcile labor and capital without changing 
their present relations is to attempt the impossible. With 
one the master and the other the slave^ they will continue 
antagonistic and incompatible. But when those who work 
become proprietors they will become responsible and be 
given a voice in that wherein they are interested. They 
will be clothed with authority. Thus empowered, laborers 
could mutually regulate the hours of work as well as their 
individual profits. The whims and caprice of capital 
would no longer hold dominion over and dictate terms to 
labor. 

If the Government should own the railroads, telegraphs, 
and mines, and municipalities the car lines, water and 
light plants, and other monopolies, those employed to oper- 
ate them would be under regulations infinitely more fair 
and desirable than those now prevailing. Each man would 
receive a just compensation for his services, and there 
would be a personal dignity and responsibility that do not 
now exist. There would be no magnates hungry for mil- 
lions squeezing wages to increase profits at every point. 

Not only does the vicious in business need to be dis- 
carded and labor and capital united, but legitimate and de- 
sirable forms of enterprise need to be renovated and 
equalized. 

When a bird clings too long to the same nest it is apt to 
become infested, and so it is with business activities. When 
long continued without disturbance deep ruts are formed, 
abuses grow up, and arbitrary methods are apt to prevail 
in the most exemplary forms of business. ^'Stock com- 
panies have no soul and corporations never die.'^ Over- 
grown by age, great concerns merge into trusts and syndi- 
cates determined to monopolize the field, and they are 
only too willing to devour every rival that shows its head. 

Competition, at one time "the life of business,'^ has be- 
come almost sure death to the small merchant and the be- 
ginner. In the rivalries between the great and small con- 
cerns the large enterprise is forced to be aggressive and 
crushing in its influence. It is an axiom of business that 
an enterprise must either grow or decline. There is no 
standing still. Most of all^ the large concern must grow 



OXIR JtrATION'S NEED. 120 

rapidly or become a great elephant upon the hands of its 
owners. As rivals in business the great concern has the 
vantage-gronnd. Everything bows to bigness : it has credit 
unlimited, advantages in buying, cheap transportation, the 
drift of the crowd, and favor in every detail. On the other 
hand, everything operates against smallness: purchases 
are too light, rating is too low, stock is too small, loca- 
tion is too obscure, people are not attracted. These char- 
acteristics are evident everywhere and in every form of 
enterprise. It was recently claimed that in one of our 
largest cities ten department stores transacted over 90 per 
cent, of the business of the city, and that over 8,000 small 
and medium sized storerooms were empty. 

In direct conflict with everything genuinely American, 
we are rapidly developing into two great classes in busi- 
ness, in society, and in modes of thought and life. It is a 
condition that has long cursed Europe, and nothing but a 
determined uprising will prevent it from settling, like an 
atmosphere of gloom, upon the American republic. 

But these large concerns cannot be destroyed. Indeed, 
they are not only a natural growth, but a necessity to meet 
the requirements of our time. It is not their size, but their 
ownership, that makes them dangerous. A divide-up and 
start-even would not necessarily close or embarrass the 
progress of a single large store or manufacturing concern ; 
but it would correct the conditions and abuses that have 
grown up with them. It would simply change ownership. 

Nor would it be necessary to disband the much-despised 
trusts and combines. Trusts are susceptible of an honor- 
able and useful mission. There are good reasons why men 
engaged in any particular line of action should associate 
for mutual interest. If a just distribution of wealth ex- 
isted it would doubtless be desirable to have every member 
of each branch of business, including farmers and pro- 
fessional men, as well as manufacturers, united through 
organizations for mutual intercourse and profit. 

Under the new conditions, if a trust representing a cer- 
tain national industry, embracing fifty manufacturing 
plants, be capitalized at fifty million dollars and employ- 
ing 50,000 workers, instead of being controlled by fifty 
millionaires, it Would be controlled by 50,000 men. The 



130 OUR NATION' 8 NEBB. 

profits, instead of flowing into fifty pockets, would find its 
way to 50,000 pockets. Instead of fifty palaces and 50,000 
tenements there would be 50,000 homes owned by the oc- 
cupants. Instead of fifty centers of luxury, extravagance, 
and dazzling show there would be 50,000 firesides repre- 
senting all the endearments of home, each one consuming 
the natural products of civilization and contributing to 
the various forms of society. Instead of fifty capitalists 
and 50,000 wage-earners, with all the depressing influences 
of servitude and poverty, there would be 50,000 master 
workmen, interested directly in what they do and sending 
out into the markets of the world goods manufactured 
under the reign of the best possible methods of concen- 
trated effort. 



They helped every one his neighbor; and every one said to his 
brother: Be of good courage. — Isaiah. 

A toil that gains with what it yields 

And scatters to its own increase, 
And hears, while sowing outward fields, 

The harvest-song of inward peace. — Whittieb. 

All that society can do it ought to do ... to give every 
man, to the extent of our power, full, fair, and free oppor- 
tunity so to exercise all his moral, intellectual, physical, and 
spiritual energies that he may, without let or hindrance, be 
able to do his duty in that state of life to which it has pleased 
God to call him. — Lord Shaftesbury. 

The man who is in danger of want, or even in dread of want, 
is not a free man; and the country which does not assure him 
the means of livelihood is not a free country, though it may 
be the freest of all free countries. In other words, liberty and 
poverty are incompatible. — William D. Howells. 

The finest fruit earth holds up to its Maker is a man.— 
Humboldt. 

Every human being must have some object to engage his atten- 
tion, excite his wishes, and rouse him to action, or he sinks, a 
prey to listlessness. For want of proper occupations see stren- 
uous idleness resorting to a thousand expedients — the race- 
course, the bottle, or the gaming table, the frivolities of fashion, 
the debasements of sensuality, the petty contentions of envy, 
the grovelling pursuits of avarice, and all the various distract- 
ing agitations of vice. — William Gaston. 

Liberty cannot long endure in a country where the tendency 
is to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few. — Daniel 
Webster. 

Is there anything better in a state than that both men and 
women be rendered the very best? There is not.-— Plato. 



132 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 133 



CHAPTEK X. 

MORAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE. 

What would be the moral and social influence of a 
divide-up and start-even ? Would the people be made bet- 
ter or worse? 

Doubtless there are many really good people to be found 
who believe that the effect would be bad. Were the meas- 
ure to become an issue in politics the assumed evil effects 
would, perhaps, be the most strongly pressed argument 
against its adoption. Many would claim that the drinking 
class would debauch the deeper; that prodigals would in- 
vade new fields of sin; that ignorance would be given a 
dangerous power; that improvidence and laziness would 
be encouraged; and that even if improvement were to fol- 
low it would last only for a season, and conditions would 
soon be as bad or worse than they are now. Thousands of 
well-meaning men and women would vehemently condemn 
such a proposition as impractical and detrimental to the 
common good. Many would claim that wealth would be 
transferred to strange and dangerous hands ; that it would 
be simply sowing broadcast over the land the accumula- 
tions of generations of labor, economy, and thought; and 
that tricksters and dishonest schemers would manipulate 
the accompanying evolutions of business and reap a rich 
harvest. Some would predict that the final result would 
be confusion, general devastation, and social and moral 
chaos. 

But none of these claims are supported by either his- 
tory or facts. 

The fact that a division of property would create new 
conditions and destroy many old and well-established cus- 
toms of business and habits of society would arouse lamen- 
tations among the conservative. But the fact that an idea 
or measure is new is no argument against it, nor is it to be 
condemned because it, in turn, may be followed by con- 



134 OUR NATION'S NEED, 

ditions as evil and vicious as those which it is intended to 
remove. That a new political party will grow as corrupt 
and useless as the old ones are, or that new political lead- 
ers will grow as servile to party and as foggy in statesman- 
ship as present incumbents, are not good reasons why new 
parties should not be formed or new men elevated into of- 
fice. That a new condition will breed new and even worse 
evils to be overcome in the future is no reason why it 
should not be brought about. Because a child will grow 
as old as its father is no argument against its birth. That 
another drought will come, more severe than that which 
exists, is no point against rain. On the contrary, the fact 
that political parties grow corrupt by age and politicians 
weak and venal by long experience makes it imperative 
that new principles be evolved and new men elected to of- 
ficial positions. The fact that conditions grow unfair and 
unjust makes a change absolutely necessary, just as the 
fact that a man grows old and must die makes it necessary 
that he be replaced by offspring, or the fact that the earth 
becomes dry and parched creates an imperative demand for 
successive rains. 

The claim that any appreciable number of the people of 
the United States are incapable of becoming safe and de- 
sirable property owners is absolutely unwarranted. There 
is nothing, outside of religion, that may be as safely dif- 
fused among the people or which is as conducive to social 
and moral rectitude as the moderate ownership of prop- 
erty. For four thousands years history has been constant- 
ly teaching that concentrated wealth leads to national de- 
cay; that poverty leads to vice and dissipation; and that 
those who are neither rich nor poor are the chief bulwark 
of civilization. 

During the reign of Solomon every man owned his home, 
and the people were peaceful and contented. "He had 
peace on all sides round about him ; and Judah and Israel 
dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his 
fig-tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of 
Solomon." This is surely a remarkable illustration of how 
man will respect and honor the practical application of 
wise government and the universal ownership of property. 

There is not a spot in our nation, be it ever so crowded 



OUR NATION^ 8 NEED. 135 

or desolate, where a moderate possession of property should 
not prove a direct and genuine blessing. Such a condition 
is a part of the soul-life of a republican form of govern- 
ment. "Give me neither poverty nor riches/^ prayed the 
apostle. Either extreme is injurious. Safety rests in the 
happy medium, and this medium implies ownership. Prop- 
erty is the palladium of peace, usefulness, and power. For 
childhood to be deprived of its benefits is a crime against 
the Almighty ; to get married without it is like starting 
from nowhere, protected by nothing, and aiming at a star ; 
to grow old without it is to rob age of its evidence of vir- 
tue and wisdom and even reproach infinite care. 

To assail the wisdom of a divide-up on the ground that 
the American people as a whole are unfit and unsafe to be- 
come property owners — that it would be dangerous to allow 
them a business or a competency because they are unable 
to appreciate and care for them — is to assail the Declara- 
tion of Independence, to ignore the principles of religion, 
and insult common sense. To teach such doctrines is to 
propagate anarchy, 

A divide-up would neither injure society nor impair 
morals. And there is every reason for believing that it 
would be a great. social and moral uplift, such as the world 
has never seen. Overwhelmingly true is it that the great 
middle class — ^those who are not rich and who yet own 
something — make the best and most loyal citizens. This 
class are the backbone of society, the truest defenders of 
the law, the safety-valve in politics, and the chief promo- 
ters of virtue and religion. From the firesides of this class 
of citizens go out the noblest and best types of manhood 
and womanhood into the world, and their influence is 
strong and constant for good. They add new vigor to 
physical and social life, they stimulate business and in- 
dustry, and add pure blood and clear brain to the national 
character. 

A divide-up would he a direct specific for the curse of 
intemperance. It would supply what all other temperance 
measures lack. It would destroy the nests in which in- 
temperance is hatched and fostered. It would change the 
social environments of those who drink. It would obliter- 
ate the saloon with its temptations and bad associations. 



136 OXTB NATION'8 NEBT>. 

It would stop drunkenness by removing the causes which 
produce it. 

For many years the subject of intemperance has been 
widely and earnestly studied. In school, in church, and in 
politics it has held a conspicuous place. It has been by 
far the most liberally discussed subject upon the American 
platform. Temperance workers have been almost guilty 
of the sin of Ham in exposing his father Noah by publicly 
parading the hideous countenances, the ragged attire, and 
the wretched homes of their fathers and brothers who have 
fallen victims to wine. But the consumption of liquor 
constantly increases. In nearly every State the teaching 
of the evil effects of alcohol is compulsory in public schools, 
but the results of such instruction are scarcely visible. 
The country is being constantly flooded with temperance 
literature, but the drink curse, with all its attending evils, 
survives. 

It is furthermore true that the victims of no habit so 
deeply deplore their bondage, and that to none; is extended 
such honest sympathy. Temperance efforts have failed 
because the real root of the habit has not been reached. 
Temperance reformers have contented themselves with 
condemning the use of liquors as a beverage, denouncing 
the license system as a curse, and appealing to the con- 
science of the drunkard for his pledge and to the honor of 
the citizen for his vote. They have not followed the drink 
curse to its final analysis. Too much attention has been 
paid to the results of the drink habit — ^the cost in money, 
happiness, life, and character — and not enough attention 
given to the concrete reasons why men drink. When we 
see a man drunk we know the cause: he has swallowed 
some kind of liquor. This is self-evident to even a child. 
But when we see a man drinking liquor it is not so easy 
to tell why he does it. Yet the drinking of the dram is 
the result of a cause, just as certainly as the staggering 
gait and maudlin tongue. In fact, the drunkenness, the 
poverty, the crime and death chargeable to the saloon sys- 
tem are a secondary consideration to the more basic and 
concrete forces existing back of the drink habit itself. It 
is of far more importance to know where a drunkard came 
from than to learn where he is going. The vital point of 



TIB NA TION '8 NEED. 137 

the temperance question is not the fact that over 1,000 
boys and yonng men learn to drink and 100 drunkards die 
every day in the year, or that over 1,000,000,000 gallons 
of liquor are annually consumed at a cost of over $1,000,- 
000,000 to the people, or that on account of these things 
the land is filled with crime and shame, misery and want; 
but it is. Why do men drink f When this is discovered and 
the cause removed, it can be claimed that a temperance 
reform has at least commenced. 

Every student and close observer knows that most liquor 
is drunk by two classes — the rich and the poor — and that 
the most dissipated class of all is the propertyless wage- 
earners of the nation. The further men are separated 
from the common level the greater their temptations be- 
come. 

The reasons why the rich take to wine and luxury and 
other dissipations are apparent to all. Eiches are deceit- 
ful, hardening to the heart, and deadening to the con- 
science. They admit men into a social-circle which is un- 
restricted in customs and unbridled in appetites. Eiches 
carry, rather than lead, men into temptation, and force, 
rather than invite, them to habits of dissipation. It al- 
ways has been so and perhaps always vfill be so. 

But powerful as riches are as a tempter of mankind, 
poverty and wage-earning are close rivals. According to 
reliable observers, more than tv/o-thirds of the liquor 
drunk is swallowed by wage-earners. 

"Wage-earners spend $700,000,000 annually for liquor 
in the United States.^^ Said Mr. Powderly, while at the 
head of the Knights of Labor : "A single county in Penn- 
sylvania, so I am informed, spent in one year $17,000,000 
for drink. That county contains the largest industrial 
population, comparatively, of any in the State; $11,000,- 
000 of the $17,000,000 comes from the pockets of v/orking- 
men." 

The question arises. Do men talce to strong drinh he- 
cause they are wage-earners f With certain qualifications 
this is undeniably true. 

Twenty-five centuries ago it was said by one divinely in- 
spired: "He that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it 
into a bag with holes,'^ and the same can be said with equal 



138 OUB NATION'S NEED, 

truth to-day. The thousands of wage-earners who were 
employed in rebuilding the Temple at Jerusalem had no 
more holes nor larger holes in their pockets than the wage- 
earners of modern times. For thirty years wage-earning 
has greatly increased in the United States, and parallel 
with it the consumption of liquor has increased and multi- 
plied. The growth of no two things has been more closely 
related and uniform. 

Wherever wages are paid in abundance the saloon seeks 
a license and its patronage is well-nigh assured. 

It matters but little whether wages be high or low. 
Wherever irresponsible and propertyless wage-earning pre- 
vails the wages are turned into whisky, beer, and tobacco 
and into dissipations of every sort with a thoughtless 
avidity that is simply astounding. The forces of heredity, 
the impelling power of appetite, the allurements of com- 
panionship and social influences are not here overlooked. 
A thousand times no ! But riches on the one hand and 
poverty and propertyless wage-earning on the other, as 
causes of the drink habit and other dissipations, surpass 
them all combined. A thousand times yes ! 

Wage-earning is preeminently the gigantic curse of the 
republic. As carried on it is only a substitute for chattel 
slavery. In some respects chattel slavery would be prefer- 
able, as the slave owners, representing the wealth of trusts, 
syndicates, and great industrial concerns, would then be re- 
sponsible for the food, clothing, and shelter of those they 
would hold as property. Mankind should avoid wage-earn- 
ing as it does a pestilence. The capable man who chooses 
a life of wage-earning rather than to be his own master 
commits a sin only surpassed by him who worships an idol 
instead of the true God. 

To work for wages, to be a life-long hireling, is an un- 
natural thing to do. As citizens, men can choose their 
rulers and law makers and express their desires at the 
ballot-box, but as wage-earners in the realm of industry 
they are like aliens and dumb. They cannot choose their 
own masters, nor can they live the lives of free men. To 
legions of men, commencing a life of wage-earning means 
the surrender of their God-given talents and birthrights at 
the feet of capital and, leaving hope and ambition behind^ 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 139 

entering the great realm of industry to toil^ and sweat, and 
merely exist, and die a martyr to the tyranny of mammon- 
ism — a despotism saturated with selfish greed and that 
"will be rich," and to reach its goal is willing "to drown 
men in destruction and perdition." 

Man's normal sphere is a high one. His aspirations and 
heart, his powers and ambitions need cultivating, not 
crushing. His talents are to be doubled, not diminished 
or buried. The man in men requires exercise and an ob- 
ject and aim. The higher qualities of mind and character 
need even more than exercise and opportunity: they re- 
quire responsibility to develop and perfect their beauty and 
strength. Says Dr. Harris, United States Commissioner 
of Education: "The personal conviction of responsibility 
lies at the basis of all truly moral actions." When men 
are denied natural responsibilities and turned into mere 
automatic machines, as millions of wage-earners are, de- 
velopment in the higher and broader sense is impossible. 
When these higher attributes are destroyed men are de- 
throned ; and thus weakened they become a prey to all that 
is base and corrupt. With ambition checked and hopes 
blighted men sell themselves in the industrial markets — so 
much manual force for so much money — and when pay-day 
comes, being victims to manhood's defeat, they hurry to the 
saloon and to the various haunts of dissipation, to gratify 
their perverted tastes and drown the stinging sense of 
despair. 

It is the duty of every man to be an integer among his 
fellow-men, and he who willingly steps down from this 
God-intended level sells his birthright. The legitimate 
fruits of a man's talent and strength belong to himself and 
his family. To allow capital to step in and manipulate 
muscle, and mind, and strength, and life, in its own inter- 
ests and claim all the profits outside of a stinted and 
meager support is to permit deliberate and wholesale rob- 
bery. 

God intended that men should profit by what they do; 
that their talents and labor only should measure or limit 
their success ; and that each should receive a commendable 
and just reward, not wages, for his work and energy. The 
liireling is inevitably a subordinate^ an^ bis life is subject 



140 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

to compromise. Even in the Ten Commandments he is 
classified with cattle. Wages is the penalty for sin, the 
currency of submission and slavery, the coin of perdition. 
It is the duty of a republic to make v/age-earning the ex- 
ception, and not the rule and characteristic of its indus- 
trial life. 

Capital and labor must become a unit and not remain 
divergent interests. But there is no compatibility except 
where the hand that toils and the pocket that receives the 
profits belong to one and the same man. There have been 
strong efforts made to reconcile employers and the em- 
ployed. But there is no honorable ground of compromise. 
It can never be done until the wage-earner is willing to 
insult Heaven by taking all that is useful in talent, 
precious in intellect, and divine in manhood, and tie it up 
in a napkin and return it to his Maker. 

As a potent remedy for intemperance and other dissi- 
pating habits nothing could be more direct and radical 
than a divide-up of property. It would distribute the vast 
accumulations of riches, remove the temptations both of 
riches and poverty, give to every one an average possession, 
impose upon each a share of responsibility, force every one 
into exercise, encourage a definite purpose in each life, 
and, above all, give to each worker a direct home and 
money interest in the chosen pursuit of life. 

A divide-up would redeem many who are noiv vicious 
and lawless. Men can be found who are parasites upon 
the body social, political, and industrial. They are looked 
upon a lazy, shiftless, and a menace to all that is progress- 
ive and valuable. Some of these men are depraved within 
and without. Among their number are loafers, tramps, 
dead-beats, and beggars. They are filthy in habit, be- 
grimed in body, and polluted in mind. Their blood is con- 
taminated by bad ancestry, their bodies are weakened by 
depraved environments, and their sensibilities are blunted 
and perverse. If the earth were to open and swallow them 
it would seem that the ends of mercy had been served. 

Many of this class never possessed anything, and they 
apparently do not know how to earn, use, or save anything 
or even to protect their own interests. 

But in America this class is not large and in a divide-up 



OUB NATION'S NEED, 141 

would play an insignificaiit part. Suppose there are 
1,000,000 persons in all who would be unworthy of what 
they would receive — and this is an extremely large esti- 
mate. We are spending what would be their share in a 
divide-up for liquor every year. Suppose we have 200,000 
prostitutes in the nation. We are spending what would 
be their allotment in a general divide every three months 
for tobacco. Suppose there are 100,000 tramps in the 
country. We have one citizen who could give to each one 
of them $1,000 and still be a millionaire many times over. 

It is to be remembered in this connection that there is a 
pressing demand that some measure be adopted to lessen 
the injury wrought by our criminal class. Criminals have 
become a burden not easily endured. Eegarding our 
criminals, Charles Dudley Warner recently said: ^^We 
could better afford to take all these peoples, who are limited 
in number, and board them for life at the St. Denis Hotel 
at five dollars a day and make money at it.^^ If this be 
true, what a saving it would be to give to each a share 
in a divide-up, even if only one-half reformed in conse- 
quence of their new environments ? It must be conceded 
that these classes of people, above all others, need looking 
after. They have peculiar claims upon the more fortunate. 
Most of them are the result of vicious conditions for which 
they are not responsible. They are victims, rather than 
perpetrators, of wrong and disorder. It is the imperative 
duty of the State and nation to lift them from their degra- 
dation and indolence. They are still men and women, and 
entitled to all the ennobling influences of a Christian 
civilization. There remains in the souls of most of them 
a spark of the divine, that only needs rekindling and feed- 
ing to grow into a flame. 

It is a matter worthy of concern that many of those who 
are among the undesirable class are becoming the fathers 
and mothers of more children, proportionately considered, 
than more fortunate and desirable citizens. 

The human race is *so constituted that it will multiply 
more rapidly in filth, ignorance, and poverty than under 
more refined and desirable conditions. The birth-rate in 
the slum district of a large city has been known to exceed 
by over 50 per cent, that of more refined and less crowded 



14a OTIB NATION'S NEED. 

localities. In one district in New York City there were 
not long since "986 persons to each acre, and out of a 
population of 255,033 persons in this overcrowded section, 
only 306 had access to a bath-tub." What was here found 
on a large scale is to be found, only less in extent, in every 
city in the Union. The birth-rate in such localities is 
often enormous, and the children of such parentage are in- 
evitably biased and bent. They easily become paupers, 
criminals, and degenerates. There are already over 700,000 
defectives in our nation, and our various penal institutions 
and asylums are greatly overcrowded. The care and sup- 
port of defectives and the expense of protecting life and 
property against the lawless and criminal class are becom- 
ing a heavy burden on taxation and charity. 

Patriotism and statesmanship have no nobler or more 
imperative mission than to arouse the depressed and de- 
praved from the apathy and abandon into which they have 
fallen. The only practical and sensible method is to break 
up and destroy the slums and haunts of poverty where sin 
and dissipation have been bred and brooded. A divide-up 
would do this. The dingy and dirty hovels would be for- 
saken, and homes where sunshine, and water, and fresh 
air, and room were plentiful would be found. By giving 
to each of these persons a share in a general divide-up a 
new life would be opened up at once before them. 

Mr. Booth Tucker, whose experience makes his opinions 
authoritative, says: "Four-fifths of the miserable people 
of our city slums would be born again, scripturally speak- 
ing, under the influence of pure air, good food, perfect 
.freedom, systematic labor, and the hope of ultimately own- 
ing something of their own.'^ When Christ was upon earth 
the common people heard Him gladly — the lame, the halt, 
the blind, the leper, the prodigal, the harlot ; and the moral 
exiles of the slums will live anew when the light and lib- 
erty of love rescues them from the thraldom into which 
they have fallen. ISTone would respond more quickly to 
practical help. The majority of them would arouse from 
their lethargy and become useful, desirable citizens. To 
thousands it would be a veritable foretaste of heaven. 

The benefits that would accrue to children would he in- 
calculable. The ragged, ill-fed, and neglected children 



UB NA TION 'S NEED, 143 

that swarm in homes where poverty and ignorance now 
prevail would, more than their parents, profit by the 
change. It would not only place each in a new environ- 
ment, but school, church, and social advantage would be 
within reach of all. They would be born into a new realm. 

In an article in The Arena for June, 1897, Professor 
Hull, of Swarthmore College, says that "90,000 children 
have been sent from New York and Philadelphia to live in 
private homes throughout the country by societies organ- 
ized for the purpose," and that according to careful records 
of each case "'85 per cent, of these have turned out well 
and only 2 per cent, have grown into evil men." It is 
claimed that there are all the time more than 100,000 
laboring children in New York City. During the past 
forty years more than 200,000 homeless boys and girls 
have received supper, bath, and shelter free in the various 
lodging-houses of the city. In every large city such chil- 
dren exist in surprising numbers. 

The history of Australia is an illustration of what will 
be accomplished by giving an opportunity to poor and 
destitute children. According to the Scientific American, 
during the year 1849 the enormous number of 14,000 
pauper boys and girls of England and Ireland were trans- 
ported to the island of Australia. And if 14,000 were sent 
during one year, it is reasonable to suppose that other 
years furnished a large number. In addition, Australia 
was for years the migrating point for a large number of 
criminals. It is interesting to note what the history of 
Australia has been, subjected to such influence. Of its 
history, beginning two years after the colonization of these 
pauper children, Chambers's Encyclopaedia says: "Since 
1851 Australia has been advancing in all departments of 
material well-being at a rate surpassing that of any other 
country on the globe. Since 1870 its railroads and tele- 
graphs have been increasing at a ratio, in relation to its 
population, far exceeding that of the United States. Its 
telegraphic traffic is enormous, relatvely considered being 
double that of Great Britain." 

What children need most is not philanthropy and char- 
ity in the form of foundling asylums, orphanages, chil- 
dren's homes, and institutional schools, but rather "a home 



144 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

with a small h/^ and such would be within reach of chil- 
dren if they represented a property value. Well-regulated 
institutions serve a noble purpose in caring for the afflicted 
and defective, but to children normal in mind and body 
there is no successful substitute for the home and fireside. 
Says the eminent William Booth, whose experience is un- 
surpassed: "A child brought up in an institution is too 
often only half human, having never known a mother's 
love and a father's care." And of those without any home 
at all he says: "It is the dishorned multitude, nomadic 
and hungry from birth, with hereditary weakness of body 
and hereditary faults of character. Yet it is idle to hope 
to mend matters by taking the children and bundling them 
in barracks.'"' What a mine of untold wealth is now going 
to waste or being coined into counterfeit citizenship in the 
neglected childhood of the nation ! What a wise stroke of 
statesmanship it would be to give all these children a 
chance to grow and develop under influences where they 
would learn to honor and dignify our nation and its insti- 
tutions ! 

The same facts which apply to depraved men and 
neglected children apply with no less force to fallen wom- 
en. When sin and shame assail womanhood and rob it of 
its virtue, all human sympathy, it would seem, is forever 
repulsed. 

While more than all else fallen woman is a victim, yet, 
traduced to its ruin and abandoned in its shame, it rivals 
the saloon as a social and moral evil in the land. 

Few are the women that seek their own shame. Says 
Mrs. Charlton, of Chicago, an authority upon the subject : 
"Of the 230,000 erring girls in this land, three-fourths of 
them have been snared and trapped, bought and sold.'^ 
"To supply the demands of passion in men," says J. B. 
Wetty, "one hundred families must give up a daughter 
apiece every day in the round year.'^ Says an author who 
studied the subject for many years: "Women are ruined, 
in a great proportion of cases, from a mere exaggeration 
and perversion of the best qualities of a woman's heart. 
They yield to desires in which they do not share from a 
weak generosity which cannot refuse anything to the pas- 
sionate entreaties of the man they love, There is in the 



OUR NATION ''S NEED. 145 

warm, fond heart of woman a strange and sublime un- 
selfishness, a positive love for self-sacrifice, an active desire 
to show her affection by giving up to those who have won 
it something she holds sacred and dear/' This is no ro- 
mantic or over-colored picture. Those who deem it so have 
not measured the angelic sympathies and affections of 
womanhood. He who cannot appreciate these qualities in 
woman is unworthy of her influence. Making all due al- 
lowance for those who seem to be born inherently depraved, 
it remains true that through no channel does so much that 
is innocent, precious, and beautiful flow down to ruin as 
goes down through the cruel rapids of woman's shame. 

Why should not these women be lifted from their degra- 
dation? Thousands — -aye, the most of them — ply their 
vocation from necessity rather than choice. They deplore, 
soul-deep, the fetters and bondage under which they live. 
During their thoughtful moments the lost souls in perdi- 
tion are not more miserable. A large percentage of our 
fallen women are either feeble in mind or imbecile in 
morals, and their sin is the transgression of others rather 
than their own. Common justice and common instinct 
demand that we search through the alleyways and the more 
pretentious seclusions where their polluted but pitiful 
bodies hide in neglected remorse, and give to each a home 
and a chance to live a life of virtue and usefulness. The 
most of them would reform if an unobstructed pathway 
were opened up before them. And by uprooting the brothel 
the ruin of legions of young men would be averted, as out- 
raged virtue would cease to recoil. 

It is to be remembered that the morally and socially un- 
desirable, among both men and women as a class are what 
they are because the world has conspired against them. 
The elements of self-help and moral courage were lacking 
in their character, and they have simply gone with the tide. 
They required help from those stronger and firmer than 
themselves, and failing to receive it when needing it most, 
they became stranded. They are simply the debris of self- 
ish social and political systems. 

In a division of property it is presumed that the greatest 
care would be exercised to give to each exactly the best 
thing for him or her. Natural abilities and affinities, or 



146 OUR JSfATION^S NEED. 

the lack of them, should be considered. As far as possible, 
every life should be placed in harmony with its possessions. 
In this way a divide-up could be made a factor, almost 
infinite in power, for the prevention of vice, intemperance, 
crime, and immorality. Social and moral growth could be 
made possible. That ideal condition would, in a measure, 
be secured in which it is easy to do right and difficult to do 
wrong. 



"If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these 
things." 

; "New occasions teach new duties; 

Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
They must upward and onward 

Who would keep abreast of truth." 

A statesman may do much for commerce; most by leaving 
it alone. A river never flows so smoothly as when it follows 
its own course, without aid or check. Let it make its own 
bed; it can do so better than you can. — Charles J. Haee. 

I should no more dread that all the springs and rivers should 
be exhausted than that money should abandon a kingdom 
where there are people and industry. — Hume. 

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign na- 
tions is in extending our commercial relations, to have with 
them as little political connection as possible. So far as we 
have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with 
perfect good faith. Here let us stop. — Washington's Fare- 
well Address. 

When the wage-earners of this land lose hope, when the 
star goes out — after that, anarchy or a czar. — Benjamin Har- 
rison. 

This should be thy work: to improve conditions of peace, 
to spare the lowly, and to overthrow the proud. — Virgil. 

The Government lacks in dignity when it puts itself in a 

, position where it is either a mendicant asking aid from pri- 

vate citizens or a weakling at their mercy. — Comptroller 

ECKLES. 

One thing ought to be aimed at by all men: that the inter- 
est of each individually and of all collectively should be the 
same; for if each should grasp at his individual interest all 
human society would be dissolved.— Cicero. 



148 



OTTR NATION'S NEED. 149 



; CHAPTEE XL 

PRESENT POLITICAL ISSUES. 

The political field is crowded with issues. Measures 
representing almost every phase of economics have their 
advocates and champions. That a remedy is needed to re- 
move industrial and financial depression; to force an ade- 
quate supply of money into circulation ; to enable all to earn 
a livelihood and pay their debts ; to start and keep busy the 
various forms of enterprise; to harmonize extremes and 
conflicting interests; to restore confidence, contentment, 
and prosperity among the people^, is a universal belief. 

That a crisis of some kind is rapidly approaching in the 
history of our nation few close observers will deny. That 
this crisis will be chiefly political is an accepted fact. The 
star of progress is leading the public eye in the paths of 
public concern. Forward and determined action in the 
near future is inevitable. 

All legitimate public questions bear a vital relation to 
each other. An issue, like a law, to be worthy of the name 
must be an essential part of a perfect whole. One issue 
may satisfy a political hobby-rider, but true statesmanship 
must consider all worthy questions. It is impossible to 
properly appreciate or wisely discuss any political measure 
unless other contemporary and related measures are also 
considered. National progress, like physical growth, must 
be characterized by the harmonious action of separate yet 
vitally related parts. 

Among the more prominent measures at present dis- 
cussed by political parties and political economists are the 
following : 

The tariff; the financial question; the kind of money; 
bimetallism; international bimetallism; the amount of 
money needed; the temperance question; the government 
ownership of railroads, telegraphs, mines and other mo- 



150 OUB NATION'S NEED, 

nopolies; trusts and monopolies; immigration; the initia- 
tive and referendum; an honest election. 



THE TARIFF. 

A tariff is levied upon foreign goods coming to our 
shores for two purposes: 

1. To secure revenue to pay the running expenses of the 
Government. 

2. To protect American manufacturers, growers, and 
laborers by making the tariff so high as to lessen or en- 
tirely prevent the importation of such commodities as are 
manufactured or grown in our own country. 

When the importation of goods is lessened the tariff is 
called "protective ;^^ when it is prevented entirely the 
tariff is "prohibitory." 

For a number of national campaigns the tariff was the 
chief issue; and although at each election the policy was 
reversed and each part}^, while in power, as far as possible 
enforced the policy set forth in its platforms, yet at no 
time have the results on either side met the expectations 
of the people. 

The channels of business are as wide as the earth and 
as deep as the seas, and the real benefits to be derived from 
a tariff are transient and limited. 

The agitation of the tariff question during political cam- 
paigns and its discussion in Congress have been more in- 
jurious to business, no doubt, than would have been the 
continued settled policy of either side. Business, by ^sur- 
viving the ordeal, has proven itself to have a life invincible 
to political assaults. 

It is the policy of all parties to depend upon tariff duties 
for revenue to support the Government; yet in principle 
this policy is radically wrong. All tariff should be inci- 
dental. There should be other sources of revenue than that 
of levying a tax upon the importation of commodities 
the manufacture of which employs handicraft in foreign 
lands. 

On the other hand, if goods are produced in foreign lands 
that cannot be produced here and these goods are a neces- 



XTB JSTA TIOKT ^8 NEED. 151 

sity to our people, tliere is no reason why a tariff should be 
levied upon them at all when they come to our shores. 
In other words, the tariff should be entirely divorced from 
the governmental expenses, the salaries of politicians, and 
every other financial consideration, either actual or imagi- 
nary. The subject should be discussed and treated strictly 
as a business question. Then the tariff could be lowered, 
or raised, or abolished without conflicting interests inter- 
posing. It is not good statesmanship to handicap business, 
either one way or the other, in order to secure money to 
pay political bills. 

America is preeminently a business counU-y. Indeed, 
an increase of business is an essential characteristic of hu- 
man progress. Business in its broadest sense means supply 
and demand, production and consumption, buying and sell- 
ing, carrying and bringing, inventing, manufacturing, and 
exchanging — "living and letting live." 

Business is the life of civilization. It is business that 
feeds, clothes, and shelters humanity. It takes the prod- 
ucts of our labor and energy and carries them into the 
markets of the world. No matter how far these products 
must travel before they find a buyer, business, if unmo- 
lested, will carry them to the Orient, to the tropics, to the 
frozen zones, or to the half savage isles of the seas. On 
the other hand, no matter what our wants or our desires 
may be, business, if given permission, will search the wide 
world over to find that which we crave and, with the will- 
ingness of a faithful servant, lay it at our feet. 

Business, then, is of first importance. If a high tariff 
is the best thing for business it should be a law. If a low 
tariff or free trade is best for business it should be adopted 
at once. A tariff for the sake of governmental revenue, 
regardless of the claims of business, should not be enter- 
tained for a single moment. 

Business is not only an essential factor in civilization, 
but it requires channels in which to operate. Eivers and 
railroads, harbors and oceans, steam and electricity are all 
instruments to facilitate business intercourse. Our bank- 
ing system and our postal system are institutions to make 
business transactions easy. As all machinery must be kept 
well oiled, so it is that millions of money are annually; 



152 OTTR NATION' 8 NEED. 

spent in order that business may be transacted smoothly, 
quickly, and profitably. 

It must be admitted that a tariff of any sort interferes 
with business, and that in itself it is objectionable. At 
best it is only a remedy and a corrective. It is to be looked 
upon as the lesser of two evils. 

Many believe that a closely adjusted tariff is necessary 
to prevent American manufacturers from imposing upon 
the people, that if the tariff is placed high employers will 
press wages down and prices up and thus reap a wide mar- 
gin of profit. It is a widely diffused impression that it is 
wise to turn the tariff into a sort of whip to be held over 
the backs of manufacturers to keep them from being dis- 
honest and from accumulating riches too rapidly. This 
is a gross perversion of the functions of a tariff, and one 
that has caused great mischief. There should be direct 
and radical remedies to prevent dishonest employers from 
grinding down the wages of help or imposing upon the 
people. It is only a cowardly evasion of justice to ex- 
pect a tariff to protect the laboring man and the public 
against the caprice and cunning of greed. 

To act as a protective factor is the only legitimate func- 
tion of a tariff. And to protect the laboring man it must 
prohibit. If the tariff is so adjusted that foreign goods 
continue to come to our shores, the inevitable result is that 
the American laborer is forced into idleness. Consumers 
cannot use both foreign and American made hats, or cloth, 
or silk, or buttons, or any other commodity. Every article 
that comes lessens home production just that much. 

But m^any think that by having a rather high tariff we 
would allow a few goods to com^e in, simply enough to pay 
our government expenses, and workingmen would get bet- 
ter pay for making the remainder. Politicians have re- 
duced this theory to almost a hair-splitting science. But 
here, too, is a great injustice to the workingman. He may 
get fair wages, but is kept in idleness much of the time. 
This is becoming the lot of legions of American workmen. 
To work for full wages on half time is relatively worse 
than working full time on half wages. Under present 
conditions this threatens to become a national and en- 
slaving curse. If the tariff were placed so high that the 



OUB NATION'S NEED. 153 

goods would not come here at all the workingman would 
be entitled to full wages; and if the markets were suffi- 
cient he would work full time. But even here it is to 
be rem^embered that the market depends upon business 
and not upon tariff^ and that the market is the true 
source of the laboring man's hope. 

While a protective tariff has become the dominating 
policy in the United States, the fact should not be lost 
sight of that of itself it impedes business in the broadest 
and world-wide sense. 

If we could double our exports by allowing a double 
amount of imports from every nation on the globe, it would 
be of great advantage to us. It is an axiom of business 
that "all transactions are in some way reciprocated." If 
this be true there is not much danger in encouraging free 
intercourse between nations in matters of business, as in the 
end the two accounts will practically balance each other. 

Were all barriers to business obliterated, tariffs included, 
our nation would have but little to fear. Unlimited re- 
sources, inventive genius, and progressive enterprise have 
made the United States the foremost nation on the globe. We 
are headquarters for the implements and products of civili- 
zation. We should attract the world to our shores for 
supplies. No country has such vantage-ground. We are 
already sending far more to other countries than we are 
importing in return. We are exchanging the products 
of genius, skill, brains, and enterprise for those of endur- 
ance, muscle, toil, and servitude. During the fiscal year 
ending June 30, 1899, we exported $1,227,023,302 worth of 
products to foreign lands and imported $697,148,489 v/orth 
in return. During the past year our exports have been 
over $2,000,000,000 in value, and the difference in im- 
ports and exports are tremendously in our favor. Our 
exports are equal to the annual income of 3,000,000 work- 
ingmen. It is an interest far too great and far too prom- 
ising to be curtailed or crippled by a tariff, unless it mean 
something more than consideration of revenue. 

THE MONET QUESTION. 

The money question has become a prominent issue in our 
national politics. 



154 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

The chief points of controversy are: 

lo The kind of money that shall be used. 

2o The financial system that shall regulate its use. 

3. The amount of money required. 

The Kind of Money. — Eegarding the kind of money that 
shall be used, opinions widely differ. The chief point of 
difference is as to whether or not it is necessary that the 
substance of which money is made have an intrinsic value. 
One side contends that this is an absolute requirement, 
while the opposite side holds that money is an instrument 
of law, and that a piece of paper or other material upon 
which the Government has placed its official seal becomes 
of value regardless of its own nature. This is the chief 
essential point of the entire money question. 

Is it necessary that money have an intrinsic value? 

Emphatically, No ! 

If it is required that money have an intrinsic value, it is 
also necessary that some substance be found that is exactly 
suited for money and for little else ; that it exist in sufficient 
quantities to supply the demand for money and yet not be 
subject to private speculation; that its value remain uni- 
form; and that it stand use without becoming worn. 

Gold and silver are both useful in commerce. The sup- 
ply of either is entirely uncertain. They are both subject 
to intense speculation. They are constantly changing in 
intrinsic value. Both suffer greatly through wear.. They 
are both entirely unfit as a basis of the financial system 
of a great nation. Were actual prosperity to universally 
prevail, all the gold supply of our continent would soon be 
absorbed in the manufacture of personal and domestic 
valuables. According to the Scientific American, the value 
of gold and silver in manufactured articles in 1850 was 
over $165,000,000, or more than $7 for each person in the 
nation. Since the above date our per capita wealth has 
been increased fourfold. If the need of jewelry and valu- 
ables made of precious metals has increased accordinglv, 
it would require over $2,000,000,000 worth of the two 
metals to meet the demand. This would bring into the 
commercial markets our entire supply, leaving little or 
none for money. The world's annual output of gold is 
nearly $300,000,000, and under present conditions, when 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 155 

the great majority of the people are poor, nearly one-half 
of the output is used in arts and commerce. It is claimed 
that "the medals, vessels, and other objects preserved in the 
Vatican at Eome would make more gold money than the 
whole of the present European circulation." King David 
collected over $2,000,000,000 worth of gold for the Temple 
and for the national treasury, and it was almost as plenti- 
ful in Jerusalem as stones. 

Even were gold and silver perfectly suited to be used as 
money, they should not, either singly or combined, be made 
the legal standard of value. The production of both metals 
has been too spasmodic and uncertain to admit of such with 
safety. During 1887 the output of the famous Comstock 
mine was $37,062,252. During this year more of value 
was taken from twelve insignificant-looking holes in the 
mountain side than the corn crop of all the corn fields of 
New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wis- 
consin, and Minnesota combined. 

A cubic foot of gold weighs over 19,000 ounces and is 
worth nearly $400,000 as money at the mints. If one of 
our Western settlers were to discover that his quarter-sec- 
tion farm was so rich in gold that when brought to the 
surface it would be equal to five inches of the precious 
metal over the entire one hundred and sixty acres, it would, 
when coined into money, have a purchasing power almost 
without limit. Such a man could buy all property, both 
personal and real, on our continent, including Canada and 
South America. He could cross the ocean and purchase 
England, Ireland, and the continent of Europe. He could 
then buy China, Japan, and all Asia and Africa. Still 
his purse would be full. He could search the seas and buy 
all the islands. The whole earth would be his. His purse 
would still be lich in gold. Not one-half of his money 
would be absorbed. He would still have more money than 
all the rest of the world. And yet the money kings of the 
world are zealously striving to make it the unchangeable 
organic law of the nations that 25.8 grains of gold, nine- 
tenths fine, "shall be worth one dollar," and that this 
dollar shall be the only basis upon which the value of money 
shall rest. This law is now a national statute, notwith- 
standing the fact that gold dollars are so unpopular that not 



156 OriB NATION'8 NEED. 

one has been coined in several years, and that the larger 
coins are so undesirable for general nse as money that they 
have been relegated to bank and treasury vaults and paper 
money is being used in their stead. It would seem that 
Omnipotent Wisdom, in anticipation of the present age of 
mammonism, secreted the precious metals within the bowels 
of the earth and is determined to hold them there and yield 
them up only to great toil and labor until mankind has be- 
come wise enough to appropriate them to the purposes for 
which they were intended. 

Our cultivated civilization could appreciatingly utilize 
in other ways than as money every grain of gold we have 
or will ever find, and profit by its use. That, on account 
of panics and hard times, due largely to legislation in 
favor of a gold standard, the people should not only flood 
the pawn shops with jewelry, but take $4,035,710 worth of 
personal adornments to the mints to be coined into money, 
as was done in 1891, is a reproach, as disgraceful as it is 
stigmatizing, to our national law-makers. The true mis- 
sion of gold is to be not money, but a civilizing factor. It 
was not used as money in the world^s early history. It is 
the emblem of purity and nobility. In the home and on 
the person it is conducive to refinement and strength of 
character. It is a prostitution of the proper use of gold 
to make it the "money of the world." It should adorn 
every person and be found in every home. Of it, if possi- 
ble, should be made the chalice of every church. In a 
legion of ways could it profitably serve mankind. From 
moral, ethical, and social standpoints, a money system 
which requires that a country^s gold be coined and deposited 
in treasury vaults to protect the national credit is a heresy 
akin to blasphemy. Such a proceeding is as useless and 
senseless as was the setting up of the golden calf for v/orship 
in the wilderness of sin. 

On the other hand, when money does not have an in- 
trinsic value, its value depends upon the responsibility back 
of the authority that has placed its official stamp and seal 
upon its face. If there is nothing back of the official seal 
the money, of course, is worthless. If behind the obliga- 
tions made upon the face of money rest the wealth, integ- 
rity, and sovereignty of the nation, then it represents more 
than an intrinsic value. 



OTTB NATION '8 NEED. 157 

Under our present system a gold certificate is worth 25.8 
grains of coin gold, made in the form of a disk called a 
dollar, stamped to prevent counterfeiting. A silver cer- 
tificate is worth 412.5 grains of coin silver in the form of a 
stamped disk. These disks, or metal dollars, will be given 
in exchange at the Treasury Department for all certificates, 
such as are in general circulation, that any one is disposed 
to bring. If the disk, or dollar, be taken back again the 
Treasury Department will give a certificate in exchange. 
Beyond this the Government is in no way responsible. To 
swap dollars with the people is all the risk the Government 
assumes. 

But if it be true that the wealth of the nation — ^its lands 
and rivers, its cities and commerce, its mines and forests — 
is behind the money which is issued directly by the Gov- 
ernment, it surely represents an enormous value. Hon. 
James G. Blaine, in 1864, holding a greenback up before an 
audience, said: "What is this? A dollar. And it is a 
good dollar — good for the farmer, the mechanic, the mer- 
chant, the sailor, everybody. What makes it a dollar? 
Because every dollar's worth of property in the United 
States is behind it, and the life's blood of every true and 
loyal American citizen is behind it. And this makes it a 
good dollar." 

If it be true that a gold or silver certificate is worth only 
so many grains of stamped metal of fluctuating value, and 
that each note issued by the Government directly has be- 
hind it eighty billions of wealth, the relative stability of the 
two is easily appreciated. 

The very fact that gold and silver coin is kept locked up 
in vaults, and paper money, representing it, must be printed 
and sent out for circulation, is positive proof that paper 
money is preferred by the people. 

While the claim is strongly urged that "no financial basis 
is sound that does not provide for a redemption of currency 
in the money of the world," it remains true that experience 
has not supported this doctrine. The city of Venice, begin- 
ning with the year 1171, used paper money for over six 
hundred years. Its paper money was good in every civi- 
lized country in the world, and the little republic for six 
centuries was "the pride and glory of Italy." Paper, money 



168 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

was issued in Pennsylvania in 1739, ^^resting wholly upon 
the credit of the Commonwealth/' and continued for a 
period of many years. Of this period Benjamin Franklin 
said : "There was peace in all her borders. A more happy 
and prosperous population could not, perhaps, be found on 
this globe. Not one dollar was ever at a discount for coin. 
It was received for taxes. It was a currency without cost." 

Says the Scientific American: "William Pitt, under a 
system of paper money, carried the British nation through 
thirty years of war and left it richer than he found it; 
while Sir Robert Peel, whose system was a gold standard, 
carried the British nation through thirty years of peace and 
left it poorer, taking the condition of the people as a test, 
than he found it." 

The "Encyclopsedia Britannica" states as a consensus of 
authoritative opinions: "The theory of intrinsic value of 
money has been abandoned by the best writers and thinkers. 
Coin is not a safe basis. The base is too small." Said 
Henry Clay: "Whatever a government agrees to receive 
in payment of the public dues as a medium of circulation 
is money, no matter what its form may be." 

At present the value of money is based upon the value of 
gold. The value of gold, however, is an arbitrary one, the 
result of legislative enactments in its favor. Silver oc- 
cupies a subordinate position as money. The price of gold 
being fixed by law, the value remains uniform ; while silver 
is exposed, like potatoes, corn, or cotton, to commercial 
fluctuations. 

Our money system, in short, is : (1) A dollar shall be the 
unit of value; (2) 25.8 grains of coin gold shall be worth 
a dollar at the mints; (3) gold shall be the standard or 
legal money. 

An error quite common is to confound the term ''unit" 
of value with '^standard" of value. 

By "unit'' of value is meant that particular unit of money 
to which all other units or parts of units must conform. 
The dollar, regardless of the material of which it is com- 
posed, is our unit of value. A dollar does not mean a fixed 
quantity of gold or silver, but it means a unit equivalent to 
ten dimes or one hundred cents. The dollar is to money 
what the bushel is to dry measure, the gallon to liquid 



OTIB NATION'S NEED. 159 

measure, or the yard-stick to the dry goods store. That 
money have a unit of value is as essential as that it have 
a name. Had gold and silver never been discovered money 
would have been necessary; and the dollar as we have it 
to-day would doubtless have been the unit of value. 

A ''standard" of value, as the term is commonly used, 
means an entirely different thing. It is the result of legis- 
lation whereby a certain amount of some metal or other 
substance is declared worth a dollar. These dollars, repre- 
senting the desired amount of the specified substance, are 
made the legal or "standard" money in business transac- 
tions. In short, it is legislative interference in behalf of 
some metal or metals in the government manufacture of 
money. If gold be the favored substance, gold becomes 
the standard of value; and all money must bear a legal 
relation to gold. The same fact applies to silver. If both 
metals are included the union constitutes "bimetallism." 

The question arises: "/5 a 'standard' of value neces- 
sary f" If gold, silver, or both be adopted as a standard, 
it is inevitable that all financial transactions, all business 
enterprises, and all money affairs must at once be adjusted 
to this standard. As soon as a standard is adopted the 
chosen metal gradually becomes a dominating factor in 
finance and commerce. The minerals of the mines and the 
bullion of the mints become more closely related to pros- 
perity and plenty than the muscle and brain of man. Under 
our present standard a large output of gold is almost as 
necessary to the welfare of the people as a plentiful harvest. 
A panic of gold would be nearly as disastrous and make 
people starve almost as surely as a panic of bread. 

To claim that a standard of value is necessary is pre- 
posterous. To so claim is to assert that should our supply 
of gold and silver cease and the present supply become 
exhausted in the arts, money would cease to exist and the 
people be doomed to financial barbarism. Let no man be so 
cruelly blind as to conceive the notion that our prosperity 
and progress are dependent upon either gold or silver or 
both together. It is the mission of civilization to make 
servants, not masters, of these things, no matter how in- 
trinsically precious they may be. Eather than that we 
should become their slaves, it were far better that they be 



160 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

again buried in the Western hills, as when the red man and 
the buffalo trampled them under foot four centuries ago. 

The idea that our monetary system must rest upon a 
metal basis, a system inviting all the evils of greed and gain^ 
is a sophistry as foolish as it is infamous. And for legis- 
lative powers to enslave the people by narrowing our whole 
monetary system to the single substance, gold, a metal 
which at best is controlled by private interests and which 
may become the weapon of tyranny in the hands of a very 
few, is a species of treason against which every loyal citizen 
should persistently contend. Both gold and silver should 
be coined and used as money, but neither one nor both 
together should be the standard money of the nation. 

The question also arises: "Is it within the powers of 
legislation to give a value to money?" A campaign ex- 
pression, widely quoted, is: "An honest dollar, worth one 
hundred cents everywhere, cannot be coined out of fifty- 
three cents^ v/orth of silver plus a legislative fiat." This 
is true or it is not true. If it be true of silver it is also 
true of gold; and if so, a quantity of gold of unknown 
value "plus a legislative fi_at" will not make a dollar. But 
it does. For many years 25.8 grains of coin gold, of un- 
known and ever-changing intrinsic value, through ^legisla- 
tive fiat" have been kept worth exactly a dollar. G-old 
coin is "fiat" money. So would "legislative fiat" make 
371 J grains of silver worth a dollar. So would it make a 
piece of paper worth a dollar. In other words, all money, 
whether of metal or paper, is the product of "legislative 
fiat." The intrinsic value of the metal of which money is 
composed is entirely incidental and foreign to the principle 
involved. 

It is the plain and imperative duty of the Government to 
properly recognize the monetary uses of both metals, but to 
grant no undue favors to either. 

Both gold and silver, to a limited extent, make desirable 
money, but they both should stand on their own merits. 
They are essentially commercial commodities. Each if left 
to itself possesses an intrinsic value. They both are useful 
for purposes other than money. The Government should 
not add to nor depreciate the value of either metal. Its 
duty is simply to recognize both metals, coin both as needed, 



OUM NATION'S NEED. 161 

and treat both precisely the same. Neither one nor both 
of them together can claim any right to legislative favor. 
If 25.8 grains of coin gold or 371^ grains of silver when 
made into a dollar are intrinsically worth one hundred 
cents, and if the people desire to handle that kind of money, 
they need no governmental aid to either raise, lower, or fix 
their real worth. 

Under present conditions gold mining is as mnch a 
private industry as farming, and the future output is as 
uncertain as the Delaware peach crop or the prospects of the 
Kansas grasshopper. 

Gold is fickle and deceptive. The production of noth- 
ing has been more capricious or spasmodic. To legalize it 
as the sole basis of our financial system is to expose the 
nation to the vicissitudes of luck, to the domination of 
private interests, and to the cunning of professional ma- 
nipulators. In 1869 two capitalists cornered gold, created a 
panic, jeopardized a legion of fortunes, and pocketed $11,- 
000,000 in less than a week. And there are combinations 
of men to-day who could if they would and would if they 
dared corner gold again, deplete the Treasury, paralyze 
business, and bring financial ruin to thousands of homes. 

Within a few years gold may be a relic of the past, or 
it may be so plentiful as to rival copper or brass in house- 
hold utility. Chemists tell us that the oceans contain 
60,000,000,000 tons of gold. This is equal to $25,000,000 
worth to every man, woman, and child now living on the 
earth — enough to build a golden palace for every family 
in the world and to pave the streets with pure gold, thus 
transforming the earth into a veritable New Jerusalem. 
When God said, "Thy silver is mine and thy gold is mine," 
it implied that they hold a prominent place in the world's 
economy and that they have a mission as yet unconceived 
in the future history of mankind. 

There are also many reasons why the Government should 
refuse to issue gold and silver certificates. This is done, 
as every one knows, because the people prefer paper money 
to coin. Except for international purposes or upon special 
occasions, gold and silver are desirable as money only when 
they enter into actual circulation. It is not sound business 
policy to buy gold and silver and after it is coined issue 



162 OUn NATION'S NEED, 

paper certificates for circulation and store the metal away 
in treasury vaults. If no gold and silver certificates were 
issued, it would then be learned how little modern civiliza- 
tion appreciates the bulk, weight, and inconvenience of 
traditional coin. 

But the Government requires an official money of its 
own, and an adequate supply should be issued directly from 
the United States Treasury. TMs money should recognize 
no standard hut that tvhich the sovereignty and honor of 
the nation supplies. It should be a full legal tender for all 
debts, both public and private, at all times and everywhere. 

Under such a system the money of the country would be 
gold and silver coin on the one hand and paper money is- 
sued directly by the Government on the other. It would 
soon be learned that the people have an implicit and un- 
bounded confidence in the government under which they 
live. 

The "redemption" qualities of money so strongly urged 
by some would harmonize with such a system. All gold and 
silver coin desired would be available. They would be a 
drug in the money market. Paper money is so much more 
desirable that it would soon be universally used. The ac- 
ceptance of paper money for all debts would be the most 
perfect and complete redemption possible. 

It is undeniable that nine men out of ten would have 
more genuine confidence in paper money issued directly 
by the Government, without anything but the national 
honor back of it, than they have in either gold or silver coin. 
Such money would be given unqualified preference. And it 
would deserve confidence. Our finances would then rest 
upon the most substantial basis possible under the skies. 
It would be the money of the people. It would establish 
a financial system as firm as the foundations of the Govern- 
ment itself, and one that would survive so long as the prin- 
ciples of liberty and the sovereignty of the nation endure. 

BIMETALLISM. 

Bimetallism is the concurrent use of gold and silver as 
money at a relative value fixed by law. The specific de- 
mand for bimetallism in the United States is that the rela- 



riR JSTA TION ^8 NEED. 163 

tive value be approximately sixteen of silver to one of gold, 
and that the coinage of silver be the same as that of gold — 
free and nnlimited. Sentiment among the people in onr 
country is overwhelming in favor of bimetallism. Nearly 
every party has declared for it in some form. At the elec- 
tion in 1896 over 13,500,000 votes were cast in favor of the 
measure, either to be adopted at once or through inter- 
national agreement, while less than 500,000 persons voted 
against it. 

The claim is made upon one side that the value of gold 
dollars has appreciated on account of the legislative favor 
that gold has received, and that the coin value is thus much 
higher than what it would be if it were left to its own 
merits like silver and other commodities. 

It is claimed upon the other side that silver dollars are 
only worth about one-half their face value, and it would 
be dishonest to recognize fifty cents' worth of silver as legal 
dollars. 

In a sense both of these claims are true. The gold dol- 
lar and the silver dollar are both dishonest. One is over- 
favored, the other is an outcast. There is not an honest 
dollar to be found of either kind. A dollar that demands 
fifty cents' worth more than its face value is as dishonest as 
the one whose face value is overrated. 

The only way to remedy this financial crime is to dis- 
card both metals or recognize both as money at the proper 
ratio. 

Through forty centuries they have come down to us as 
money and as precious metals, and at a general ratio not 
far from that suggested, or "16 to 1." They belong to- 
gether, and it is futile to try to separate them. Of the two 
metals, silver was used as money for centuries before gold. 
Silver is the better suited for money. It is much more 
common in actual circulation. When a financial system is 
on a metal basis, if one metal be deprived of monetary 
power the volume of full legal currency is thereby reduced 
not far from one-half. 

Bimetallism is in harmony with an invariable law. With 
few exceptions all nature exists in pairs and correlative. 
From the Garden of Eden until now everything has its 
companion and counterpart. The brain, and blood, and 



164 OVB NATION'S NEED. 

bones of all animal life are each composed of two distinct 
materials. Nearly every organ in the body is one of a pair. 
Nearly every human need is supplied by two articles similar 
in nature. 

There are two kinds of animal clothing — silk and wool, 
and two vegetable fabrics — linen and cotton. There are 
two chief kinds of grain — wheat and corn. How naturally 
we associate horses and cattle^ sheep and hogs, rabbits and 
squirrels, dogs and cats, and even rats and mice. Our 
tables are supplie-d with beef and mutton, veal and pork, 
chicken and turkey, goose and duck, coffee and tea, sugar 
and molasses, milk and eggs. There are two kinds of fuel 
— wood and coal; two natural sources of light — ^the sun 
and moon; two domestic lights — ^the candle and lamp; 
two manufactured lights — gas and electricity; two sources 
of power — electricity and steam ; and two methods of send- 
ing messages — telegraph and telephone. Fruits and vege- 
tables are closely associated in pairs. There are two kinds 
of potatoes. We have pears and apples, peaches and apri- 
cots, cherries and plums, strawberries and raspberries, 
gooseberries and currants, beets and onions, turnips and 
carrots, peanuts and chestnuts, shellbarks and walnuts, 
oranges and lemons, pineapples and bananas, beans and 
peas. 

Of the entire sixty-seven chemical elements almost none 
are ever seen alone. Air is composed of nitrogen and oxy- 
gen; neither would answer by itself. Water, the most 
abundant substance in nature, is composed of two sub- 
stances, oxygen and hydrogen; separated, one would blow 
the earth into pieces and the other would burn the frag- 
ments, but together they are the emblem of honesty, purity, 
and divinity. 

The atomic weight of oxygen is 16 and that of hydro- 
gen is 1. Water is, therefore, atomically, precisely 16 to 1. 

Common salt is composed of two substances, highly 
poisonous when separated. Pure iron is but little known 
and worthless. The best Bessemer steel is composed of 
iron and carbon almost exactly 16 to 1. Scarcely a single 
metal is suited to any use in its pure state. They all re- 
quire a companion. Nearly all are dangerous when iso- 
lated. There are seventeen elements in the human body ; 



OUB NATION'S NEED. 165 

if isolated some would explode^ others would burn, one 
would even dissolve glass, and man would become a center 
of danger and destruction. 

Tin alone is unfit to make a dinner pail. Pure lead is 
unfit to make type or even shot. Neither pure gold nor 
pure silver can be used for money. All coin is of neces- 
sity composed of two metals. Every dollar or dime must 
of necessity be bimetallic. Nature has established an in- 
exorable law in favor of bimetallism, and she must be 
obeyed. 

In the mines gold and silver are found organically 
wedded. A noted authority says : "All gold coin contains 
silver which it is impossible to remove.^^ It may be that 
the coming dollar will be one of silver and gold — "16 to 
1^^ — ^melted together in the same crucible, and when in- 
separably united made into a coin combining all the 
virtues and free from all the objections which the two 
metals now possess as money. It would seem that the 
Great Teacher meant the whole realm of nature, including 
the metallic world, when He said: "What, therefore, God 
hath joined together let not man put asunder." 

IISTTERNATIONAL BIMETALLISM. 

In connection with the subject of bimetallism, the sug- 
gestion of an international agreement upon the question 
has secured recognition in the general issue. 

It would consist of various nations agreeing upon a 
certain basis of ratio between gold and silver, and each 
nation in the compact adopting bimetallism upon that 
basis. If all nations should enter into such an agreement, 
gold and silver, related by a specific ratio, would consti- 
tute the authorized legal "standard" of value ; and, to use 
an oft repeated saying, "an American dollar would be 
worth one hundred cents anywhere in the world." 

In what way the United States would profit by an inter- 
national agreement in favor of bimetallism has never been 
satisfactorily explained. Why we should be anxious that 
an American dollar be worth one hundred cents and of 
high purchasing power in the markets of London, or Paris, 
or Shanghai, or "anywhere on earth" is not easily com- 
prehended. 



166 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

International bimetallism is both undesirable and un- 
American. There are tens, of thousands of men in the 
United States who refuse to become citizens and support 
our institutions, yet who are making and saving every dol- 
lar possible and sending it to the Orient. A still greater 
number are working in our mines and scavenging our 
streets, only to return to foreign shores with American 
gold. Even the matrimonial adventurer comes from 
across the sea and captures our wealth and beauty and set- 
tles it in titled Europe. Thousands of our citizens, as 
tourists, cross the ocean every year, hobnob with royalty, 
and save enough by doing their shopping in London and 
Paris to pay their passage over and return. According 
to a recent report made by the Treasury Department at 
]N'ew York, not far from $40,000,000 worth of goods have 
been thus brought from Europe annually and allowed to 
come free of duty. 

What our country needs is a money of its own. What 
our people want is an adequate supply of dollars that are 
good upon our own soil; good for the merchant and the 
mechanic, the educated and the ignorant, the rich and the 
poor. If American money should begin to depreciate the 
moment it left our shores, and the further it should travel 
the less it would be worth, our country need not suffer 
in consequence and no patriotic American would have 
cause to complain. International bimetallism is a fraud 
and a dangerous snare. 

International bimetallism is open to a still deeper ob- 
jection. If all nations were to adopt it the world would 
become one great system of finance. And like all other 
, systems, it would have a circumference and also a center. 
The center of this great financial system would be Great 
Britain. The world would be one great financial empire 
and London would be the throne. From this point usury, 
and wholesale speculation, and the oppressions and dicta- 
tions of concentrated capital would radiate. London is 
now the pulse of the world's finance : it would then be its 
heart. 

The measure would enslave all nations to a money 
system. No country v/ould be free. No government 
would have an independent financial^ system, nor could it 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 16? 

pass laws to protect itself without first consulting and 
gaining the permission of powers chiefly alien to its own 
interests. 

The object wrought by the Kevolutionary War was 
chiefly financial liberty, and by adopting international bi- 
metallism we would, in no small measure, cast to the winds 
that which once cost the life's blood of our fathers. Well 
might the question of Washington here be asked : "Whj?-, 
by interweaving our destiny with that of any other part of 
Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of 
European ambition, rivalries, interests, humor, or ca- 
price T^ 

THE AMOUNT OF MONET NEEDED. 

Money is as necessary in the channels of business as 
water in the channels of the rivers. No matter how pure 
water may be, it requires an abundance of it to bear the 
freighted commerce of the world upon its bosom; and no 
matter how good money may be, it requires an abundance 
of it to meet the demands of a great and prosperous 
people. 

An adequate supply of money is imperative. It is not 
only needed in large business centers, but everywhere. To 
be short of money is a calamity. This truth applies with 
equal force to the bankers of Wall Street, to the farmers 
upon the prairie, to the merchant prince, or to the keeper 
of a peanut stand. 

Said the political economist Hume: "In every king- 
dom into which money begins to flow in greater abundance 
than formerly, everything takes a new face. Labor and 
industry gain life; the merchant becomes more skillful 
and diligent; and even the farmer follows his plow with 
more alacrity and attention.^' The Monetary Commis- 
sion of 1876 showed that the disasters of the Dark Ages 
were caused by decreasing the amount of money among 
the people. 

The claim is made that there is plenty of money, but that 
during recent 3^ears it has sought a hiding-place, and re- 
fuses to come out and circulate because business ajffairs 
have shown a low ebb of confidence. This is half a truth 



168 OVR NATION'S NEED. 

only. It has sought refuge chiefly because it has been in 
the hands of the few and because it is the wrong kind of 
money. Our money represents gold, and gold is a com- 
mercial article. Great financial magnates, aided by our 
banking system, take advantage of this fact, practically 
corner our money market, and wait until money can secure 
special prices or special terms before investing it. Our 
money, based upon gold, in an indirect way does exactly 
what gold did during and after the war. "No people in a 
great emergency ever found a faithful ally in gold. . . . 
It was the most invincible enemy of the public credit. 
Gold paid no soldier or sailor. It was worth most when 
our fortunes were the lowest. . . . But, as usual, 
when danger had been averted and victory had been se- 
cured, gold swaggers to the front and asserts the su- 
premacy." 

But the free coinage of silver would afford only tem- 
porary relief. The adoption of bimetallism, by doubling 
the amount of standard money, would relieve conditions 
for a season; but as both metals would be subject to the 
same influences that gold is now exposed to, the control 
of money would rapidly drift into the hands of a few. 

Both gold and silver are secured through private chan- 
nels; the Government simply coins the bullion. They are 
both subject to feverish speculation. Gold and silver 
mines are owned by men wild to get rich. In the end 
bimetallism, if the two metals were declared the only real 
money, would favor the few and oppress the many. The 
people would be at the mercy of the money kings and mine 
owners ; and as many of these are aliens and live in foreign 
lands, serious complications would, in the end, be inevi- 
table. 

What the people need is not more money that they can 
borrow or buy with mortgages and slavery, but more nat- 
ural money, a money of the people, a money that will flow 
through the channels of industry and commerce entirely 
divorced from private entanglements. 

As civilization increases and the needs of the people 
grow, more money per capita is required. Every new in- 
vention that creates new wants demands an increase of our 
circulating medium. Unless the purchasing capacity of 



OUR N'ATION^S NEED. 169 

the people be increased, every additional need must mean 
the abandonment of some old comfort or the contraction 
of a debt to secure the new. 

There is less of exchange in business than formerly. 
Producers sell their wares for cash and they buy for cash. 
Gigantic concerns require an amount of money altogether 
unnecessary years ago. Cash transactions have multiplied 
enormously, and their magnitude has outgrown compari- 
son with former times. In one office building in New 
York city ^^over 23,000 persons went in and out in a single 
day, and the business transacted surpassed that of many 
of our small-sized cities.^^ Business exchanges running 
into the millions are of daily occurrence. While these 
transactions are not made in cash, yet the more closely 
they are represented by actual money somewhere, the more 
legitimate and natural they are. 

When times of financial stringency come these great 
money centers are the last to suffer. As the ocean is 
swelled when the rivers run dry, so when panics prevail 
in the land financial centers become engorged and hold 
dominion over the money market. 

As only the Government can coin or issue money, it is 
the first concern of good statesmanship to see that the 
people are fully supplied. When a stringency occurs, it 
should never be due to a lack of a sufficient quantity of 
money, but to some fault which needs correction in the 
methods of handling it. 

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 

Perhaps no one thing has deceived so many really good 
people or so corrupted the popular mind and public morals 
as the license system. License is wrong in principle and 
vicious in practice. It is not a remedy for intemperance. 
It promotes it. A saloon has the same effect upon the 
average young man or a toper as a toy or candy shop 
window does upon the child. It tempts him. It ruins 
him. License does not tend to lessen or destroy the liquor 
business, but protects and establishes it. As an economic 
measure it is worse than a failure. 

All license^ regarding tvrongs or evils shouU forever cease, 



170 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

The sale of liquor and other injurious things could then 
be regulated or prohibited from a common sense business 
standpoint. These things should stand upon their own 
merits, not upon the merits of the money they pour into 
the publi<3 treasury. 

The sentiment in favor of the suppression of the liquor 
traffic has never been more than feebly expressed at the 
ballot-box. The license system and the drink traffic have 
never met their opponents in open, decisive battle. The 
advocates of no reform have been so separated into factions 
as those who desire temperance reform; and none have 
encountered such gigantic opposition. 

There are many reasons why prohibition is strongly op- 
posed. The liquor traffic is an enterprise of gigantic pro- 
portions. It employs nearly 1,000,000 men. The annual 
sales reach $1,000,000,000. The profits are large. It 
pours into our national Treasury over $160,000,000 an- 
nually. It is, in the form of license, a chief source of 
revenue for cities and towns. It is intrenched in munic- 
ipal, State, and national politics. It conducts nearly 
250,000 saloons, and each one is a center of political in- 
fluence. In its trail are millions of voters who, to some 
extent, are addicted to drink and whose influence it secures. 
It is organized. It is one solid, combined power. Money 
is made easily by those in the business; they get it cash 
down; they spend it freely and are willing to buy their 
political liberties at the highest price. In its organized 
form the liquor traffic is prepared to secure everything that 
union or forces can produce or that money can buy. It 
is well-nigh invulnerable. 

To destroy the liquor traffic would cut off a great source 
of revenue. It would throw legions of men out of employ- 
ment. As a single-issue measure prohibition has failed, 
and is likely to fail in the future, to secure enough "elec- 
tion-day foUowers^^ to win success. 

The fact that the closing of the saloon would be of 
untold benefit to society and to business has failed to im- 
press the public mind. The conscience of the liquor seller, 
clouded by the love of lucre; the conscience of the liquor 
drinker, clouded by the love of his dram; and the con- 
gcienqe of the average Christian^ clouded by the love of 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 171 

party, all compromise iipon the same ticket on election 
day. For over twenty years this three-sided battle has 
been going on, and liquor has won almost every time. 
Even those who are actually engaged in the cause of tem- 
perance fail to realize the great battle that is before them. 
Their efforts, zealous and praiseworthy as they may be, 
fall short of what is necessary to accomplish the end in 
view. 

During a division of property every saloon, every bar- 
room, every brewery, and every distillery could be closed, 
their stock and equipments destroyed, and every person 
engaged in the business find more desirable positions in 
other lines of action. The sale of liquor could then be 
restricted to medical and scientific purposes by proper 
laws. Only the purest would be made and their sale con- 
fined to proper channels. These laws would, beyond ques- 
tion, meet with popular approval. Appetite and habit 
would of course rebel, but their influence would rapidly 
wane, and in a short time sobriety would become a crown- 
ing virtue of the nation. 

GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OF THE RAILROADS AND OTHER 

MONOPOLIES. 

^ There are over 180,000 miles of railroads in the United 
States. In operating them over 800,000 men are em- 
ployed and nearly $800,000,000 are annually expended. 
The estimated value of railroad property is over $12,- 
000,000,000. While they are operated as private concerns, 
they are involved in debt to the extent of $11,500,000,000. 

There are over 1,000,000 miles of telegraph and tele- 
phone wires in the country, the receipts of our telegraph 
system alone being over $22,000,000. 

Our annual output of coal is about 200,000,000 tons, 
the mining of which is one of the leading industries of 
the country. Over 2,000,000,000 gallons of oil are an- 
nually taken from the earth, and it is used in almost every 
household. 

There were taken from the mines of the United States 
in 1898 gold to the value of over $64,000,000 and over 
$70,000,000 (commercial valne) worth of silver. 



172 OJJR NATION'S NEED. 

These great natural monopolies have all become national 
in importance. There is a rapidly growing demand that 
they and other similar forms of wealth belong to the G-ov- 
ernment. They have entirely outgrown the safety point 
as private enterprises. Together they employ not far from 
1,500,000 men. 

In making the government ownership of these great 
monopolies, or any one of them, the basis of a political 
issue, the question naturally arises, How can the Govern- 
ment acquire them? Would the Government buy the 
present railroads, take them without buying, or build 
parallel lines and, through competitive influence, force the 
roads now operating to quit business? 

None of these plans are practicable. To buy them 
would establish an aristocracy. The Government would 
simply assume guardianship over a lot of native and for- 
eign bondholders. To take them without paying for them 
would be both unconstitutional and dishonest. To build 
new roads parallel would be foolhardy. The old lines 
are, as a rule, just where they should be. Their courses 
have become as fixed as the beds of' rivers, and new lines 
would be a preposterous undertaking. And what is true 
of railroads also applies to telegraph, telephones, street- 
car lines, and to all natural monopolies. As a single-issue 
measure it would be impossible to transfer these great 
holdings from private to public possession with any degree 
of equity. It could be done only as the accompaniment 
of a universal readjustment of property among all the 
people. These and all other natural monopolies, whether 
national. State, or municipal, could then be reserved as 
public property with absolute fairness to all. 

TRUSTS AND MONOPOLIES. 

The formation of ^^trusts'^ and other combinations dur- 
ing recent years has attracted widespread attention, and 
their consideration is one of the most prominent subjects 
connected with politics at the present time. While the 
primary object of trusts is to lessen expense and render 
more efficient and satisfactory service to the public, their 
y^etl object under present conditions se§ins to be to secure 



OUR JSfATION'S NEEDit 173 

a monopoly in some special line of goods, control the out- 
put, arbitrarily fix prices, and crush, or kill all discon- 
i>ected opposition. It is simply the method that unbridled 
power has always adopted to fortify itself and promote its 
own interests. 

Trusts represent a large share of the financial and in- 
dustrial enterprise of the nation. Over 600 industrial 
trusts and combinations have been formed in this coun- 
try, and their combined capitalization is about $8,000,000,- 
000. It would seem that our entire manufacturing sys- 
tem eventually will be under the dominion of this form 
of combination, more than one-half of it being already so 
absorbed. 

Trusts have been vehemently assailed in popular dis- 
cussion, and the sentiment against them as now oper- 
ated is both widespread and strong. But they have only 
multiplied and become more deeply and thoroughly estab- 
lished. 

They represent a money power without a parallel in 
all history. They are prepared to buy anything for cash 
that is for sale at any price. They have the power to 
purchase entire congressional districts and whole states 
at election times as systematically as though such were 
an ordinary business transaction. They can buy legis- 
latures and law courts as easily as courtesy can win a 
smile. They could donate to every governor of every 
state, every congressman, and every senator an inde- 
pendent fortune, and make of every president a million- 
aire the day he assumed office, and scarcely feel the ex- 
pense, provided these governors and law-makers and pres- 
idents would turn legislation their way. 

^ Trusts are not, however, totally bad. It is only when 
viewed superficially that they so appear. They are a 
complex organism and are, to no small degree, an out- 
growth of modern progress and improved methods of do- 
ing business. It must be admitted that the capital they 
represent employs millions of people and supports mil- 
lions of homes. It is claimed in their favor that by their 
existence ^''the prices of manufactured goods are lessened, 
higher wages are paid, and the public is better served.'* 
While ^his claim is not, as a rule, supported by facts, tho 



174 OUR NATION '8 NEED. 

failure is due not to the existence of trusts, but to the 
selfish and dishonest methods followed in their manage- 
ment. 

Trusts have the power to be the friend and protector 
of labor. No truth is plainer than this. Trusts fortify 
capital and capital employs labor, and whatever fortifies 
that which employs labor can, if it will, give labor an in- 
creased benefit. Theoretically trusts are desirable. It 
must be admitted that if honestly and wisely conducted 
both capital and labor would be benefited by their ex- 
istence, and in addition the people would be better served 
and supplied. It is only through corrupt management 
that they merit disfavor. 

Trusts represent order, system, economy of force, and 
intelligent action, all of which are essential to the best 
service and highest achievements. In union in business 
matters, as elsewhere, there is strength. Trusts repre- 
sent the thought, wisdom, and cultivated business acumen 
of thousands of our most sagacious and farsighted men. 
Viewed in the broader and deeper light of business ex- 
perience, they are not only a legitimate outgrowth of genu- 
ine progress, but they are a direct demand of the times. 
From the beginning progress has made our industrial and 
commercial life more complex, and increasing complexi- 
ties have always demanded more extended and thorough 
organization. 

The remedy to employ against trusts is not to waste 
energy in futile effort to destroy them, but to annul the 
conditions which render them an evil. Were they de- 
stroyed, the individual parts of which they are com- 
posed would survive and possess wealth and power suffi- 
cient to accomplish their ends almost as effectually as they 
do now. Indeed, most of the evils ascribed to trusts grew 
into existence and were widespread long before trusts were 
formed. 

It is claimed that trusts crush the small concerns and 
make it impossible for young men to enter business. Yet it 
is a recognized fact that for two decades over 80 per cent, 
of those entering business failed. Were a river spanned 
by a bridge so full of mantraps that fourmen out of every 
five that undertook to cross it fell through and were 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 1^5 

drowned, it would be a work of genuine philanthropy 
should some one so barricade the bridge that none could 
enter upon its seductive pathways. If the realm of busi- 
ness and manufacture, through the influence of trusts, were 
so walled in that no new recruits could enter until it oif er 
more of success and less of failure, it would prove a blessing 
to an untold legion of men whose ambition to launch into 
business is greater than their ability to meet the difficul- 
ties that beset those who find themselves so engaged. 

It is claimed that trusts destroy competition. Yet the 
f aet remains that competition has been so intense for many 
years that manufacture and trade have been growing less 
and less remunerative, and competition, so long the life of 
business, has become its threatening death. Sothing but 
organized union can control competition. While all de- 
partments are overcrowded, there is imposed the addi- 
tional curse of an army of misfits and incompetents who 
fail in one line and fly to another and demoralize all, and 
organized effort is the only resort whereby to make it 
possible for even the fittest to survive and succeed. 

It is claimed that trusts raise the price of commodities 
and lower the wages of labor. Yet it is true that good 
prices are the life of trade. Nothing so demoralizes busi- 
ness as the loss of profit through low prices. It is the 
greatest menace to all forms of trade — the curse most to 
be feared. A nation cannot prosper except when prices 
are good. Measures that promise "a demand for com- 
modities at good prices" has been the rallying-cry of polit- 
ical parties for years. If trusts have increased the ability 
to pay better wages to labor than what heretofore ex- 
isted, they deserve respectful consideration. And if trusts 
have increased the profits of capital and labor has not 
shared corresponding benefits, it is to no small degree the 
fault of the laboring man himself. It simply shows that 
the vital relations that should exist between capital and 
labor have been destroyed. Both business and industry 
have for many j^ears been undergoing a gradual deca- 
dence. Profits have been growing less and wages m.ore 
unstable. They have both suffered the scourge of falling 
prices, and trusts have simply come to the rescue of a 
legion of wage-earners struggling for better pay and an 
army of employers struggling for betten profits. 



176 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

It is furthermore claimed that through the influence of 
trusts men are thrown out of employment. They do save 
labor in many directions, and by combining forces less 
help is needed. With the overthrow of oposition thou- 
sands of traveling men have been turned away idle. While 
this is all wrong, it cannot be said that the trusts are an 
evil in consequence. Labor-saving machinery should be 
a blessing, and if trusts economize labor they should on 
this account be a real blessing, and would be if just and 
natural relations existed between capital and labor. 

It is to be remembered also that while trusts are a new 
invention, the evils now being ascribed to them have ex- 
isted for years. The cause of these evils arises outside of 
combinations. While few or no trusts have been formed 
in Europe, the same evils prevail there to an extent even 
greater than they do in our own land. 

As an illustration of what organization regarding sup- 
ply and demand will accomplish, take four of our leading 
religious denominations — Methodist, Catholic, Presby- 
terian and Congregational. The Methodist and Catholic 
churches are systematically organized; the Presbyterian 
and Congregational are not. In the Methodist Church 
practically every pulpit in the United States has a 
preacher and every preacher has a pulpit, and in the Cath- 
olic Church every priest has a parish and every parish a 
priest, while in the Presbyterian Church at one time there 
were nearly 1,000 pulpits vacant and more than this num- 
ber of preachers idle, and according to a recent report of 
the Congregational Church there are 1,011 churches un- 
supplied and 1,559 ministers without a charge. From a 
money standpoint, moreover, the Methodist pulpit and 
the Catholic parish, on account of system and organiza- 
tion, are perhaps the best two financial institutions in 
America. If these two denominations had no system re- 
garding supply and demand, being so much larger than 
the smaller bodies mentioned, the same conditions would 
mean nearly 5,000 pastors idle and ahout 8,000 churches 
unsupplied. These facts conclusively prove organization 
to be a factor too powerful to be destroyed and too potent 
for good to be ruthlessly condemned. 

Farming^ medicine^ law^ merchauidising^ and otlie:r YO- 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 177 

cations suffer greatly through lack of organization. 
Farming has almost ceased to pay. The average physi- 
cian has an income disgracefully small. The drug busi- 
ness, once so profitable, on account of unrepelled competi- 
tion has almost ceased to be remunerative. Taking into 
account the services rendered, it is considered the least 
profitCuble business in the nation, and the number of drug 
stores for two years decreased at the rate of nearly 1,000 
annually. 

Oppose organization if we will, destroy all combinations 
of capital if we must, yet the fact remains that they rep- 
resent a force that, if properly directed and utilized, would 
be productive of great good. Trusts can be made to fill a 
most beneficent mission. 

The lesson to le learned is that while trusts are a great 
power, the people are still more powerful. The duty of 
the people is to no longer allow them to dominate as mas- 
ter, but to subdue them and make of them servants. Po- 
litical parties are already making a target of trusts. Yet 
insignificant and lame have been the remedies suggested 
to destroy the evil so loudly condemned. 

Let it be granted that trusts as now conducted are an 
evil and that we would be better off without them; the 
fact remains that it would be wiser still to let them live, 
but bring them under subjection. It would be a -mistake 
not without grave consequences to allow ourselves, im- 
pelled by political zeal, to destroy combinations of capital 
and enterprise without first calmly and carefully investi- 
gating the legitimate claims they hold upon modern prog- 
ress and the systems of business that inevitably outgrow 
therefrom. The duty of the hour is to arise to the occa- 
sion — ^no longer allow the trusts to benefit a few, but to 
make their blessings extend to all. 

The real remedy for trusts and all combinations of cap- 
ital is a division of property — to diffuse their wealth 
among the toiling millions who support them by their 
labor. If a hundred, a thousand, or a hundred thousand 
men are engaged in the manufacture of hats, sewing ma- 
chines, calico, children's toys, bricks, or any other com- 
modity, and representing a corresponding investment of 
capital, there are no reasons why these men should not be 



178 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

associated together for their own benefit and for the good 
of their business. No principle but a wicked one would 
oppose such a combination, and no law but a vicious one 
would prohibit it. Let us learn that related harmony and 
order is as desirable in business affairs as in government. 

Were trusts purged of watered stock, their average cap- 
ital evidently would not be far from $1,000 for each per- 
son employed. Reliable data v,dll almost invariably show 
this. One great trust capitalized at $25,000,000 employs 
25,000 men — exactly $1,000 for each. One of our largest 
mercantile houses has a capital of $7,000,000 and employs 
7,000 persons — exactly the same ratio. Evidently cap- 
ital and labor, in their relations and ratio to each other, 
are governed, like supply and demand, by well-defined nat- 
ural laws. 

Should a division of property be decided upon, the ex- 
istence of trusts and combinations would greatly facili- 
tate proceedings. They would become foundations on 
which to construct a new industrial system. The $6,000,- 
000,000 or $8,000,000,000 less inflation, now invested by 
a few millionaires and combined in trusts would become 
the property of millions of persons, embracing alike the 
few who now own all and the many who own nothing. 

Viewed aright, trusts are simply a step toward indus- 
trial liberty. The distribution of property thus organ- 
ized and valued would be a plain formality rather than 
the array of perplexing details inevitable under other cir- 
cumstances. By thus settling the problems incurred by 
the advent of trusts, natural progress would not only be 
stimulated, but it would continue undisturbed in its true 
and legitimate channels. Trusts are now a benefit to the 
few. They are now a union of influence confined to con- 
centrated capital. In practice the members of trusts are 
socialists. Trusts themselves are as socialistic as the Rus- 
kin Colony. They are a veritable proof from the realm 
of greed and money lustfthat the principle of "all things 
in common" is profitable even in cold, practical business. 
After a division of wealth they would be a benefit to all. 
By becoming the pathway leading up to a division of 
property, it would be seen that trusts were not a curse, but 
a blessing, and that those who founded them were not 



OUR J^ATIOJSr'8 JSTEED. 179 

tyrants or traitors, but benefactors, and builded wiser than 
they knew. 

One of the most significant effects of trusts is their in- 
fluence upon commercial travelers. There are 350,000 
traveling salesmen in the United States. A large percent- 
age of them have already been turned idle, and the sal- 
aries of as many more jeopardized on account of the labor- 
saving features of business combinations. This is not only 
unfair — it is downright wickedness. Traveling salesmen 
have been the chief factor in the growth of modern en- 
terprise. As educators of business men throughout the 
country their influence has been incalculable. They have 
been a propelling force without which the rapid develop- 
ment of modern enterprise v/ould have been impossible. 
No class of men have sacrificed so much; none have accom- 
plished more; and considering the intensity of their la- 
bors, none have been so poorly remunerated. For them 
to be ruthlessly turned idle is an act which sinks to the 
level of a crime. The business of the nation, in common 
justice, to no small degree belongs to them. Through 
long years of travel and toil they have not only earned it, 
but established it, cared for it, and made it what it is. As 
a class they are men of high character, of marked ability 
and keen intelligence. 

The only wise and honorable course open to traveling 
salesmen is for them to demand a division of property 
and thus acquire a financial interest in the goods they sell. 
This would at once establish the proper relations that 
should always exist between goods and the act of selling 
them. 

There is a special responsibility surrounding the selling 
of goods entirely too little appreciated. At no time does 
a thing come more in touch with our life and character 
than when we try to sell it. The selling of goods brings 
into exercise all the accomplishments of business train- 
ing. Nothing requires more integrity, intelligence, and 
tact. It might be claimed that no man has a right to en- 
gage in the selling of goods as his life-work unless he have 
a direct financial interest in the same as owner. While 
ownership may not insure the highest degree of honor at 
all times, yet it .is the best guarantee of it. The custom, 



ISO OUR NATION'S NEED. 

so long in vogue, of harnessing "professional" salesmen 
and sending them out over the country to sell goods, with 
no responsibility except to employers, with no interest ex- 
cept contingent profits, and depending for success upon 
the high art of strategy and a captivating tongue, is fast 
losing its force and should be abandoned. Every pur- 
chaser has the right to demand that he procure goods under 
the most favorable conditions, but such will not be pos- 
sible until every salesman is, to some extent, owner. As 
a matter of principle, it is the duty of traveling salesmen 
to demand the adoption of such a measure. No class of 
men could wield so great an influence in behalf of the 
cause. Were the entire 350,000 traveling salesmen to en- 
list as earnest and faithful champions of a divide-up of 
propertv, the agitation of the question would become uni- 
versal and its ultimate adoption would be little less than 
assured. 

IMMIGRATION". 

The United States is a republic. The mission of its 
citizens is to make it the happiest and most prosperous 
nation on the earth. It now has a population of nearly 
80,000,000. It could easily support over 1,000,000,000 
people, or more than twelve times its present population. 

Immigration constantly adds to our numbers. For the 
past seventeen years an annual average of nearly 500,000 
foreigners have landed upon our shores. They have come 
from every clime and represent every phase of life and 
character. Many of them are to be classed among our 
best and most useful citizens. Others have been a con- 
stant menace to our peace, our laws, and our institutions. 
Immigrants, much more than our own natives, represent 
extremes of intelligence and ignorance, virtue and vice. 

America in her early history was a refuge for the vir- 
tuous and oppressed, but there is danger of its becoming 
the resort of the criminal and debased. We have been 
BO loud and reckless in vaunting American liberty to the 
world that a vast horde, hungry for this sort of thing, have 
invaded our shores, and they are so prodigal with their 
new privileges that there is scarcely enough liberty to go 
around. This class have corrupted our politics, polluted 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 181 

our cities, demoralized American labor, and lowered our 
social standard. 

That strict immigration laws be enacted and rigidly en- 
forced is imperative. JSTot only should we shut out the 
illiterate, but, above all, the criminal and vicious, the 
shiftless and indolent. It would not be amiss to require 
a reliable certificate of character and subjection to a med- 
ical examination from all who seek a home among us. It 
is an accepted principle that the Almighty will not help 
those who are unwilling to help themselves, and the sooner 
this principle becomes a settled policy regarding immigra- 
tion the less will the country suffer. 

But the United States needs more people. Indeed, to 
increase her population should be a constant aim. We 
cannot get too many people of the proper sort. Few 
things redound more to the credit of a state or city or 
locality than a constant and substantial increase in popu- 
lation. 

All cities and almost all towns have boards of trade 
and other organized forces the object of which is to secure 
manufacturing and other interests, knowing that men, 
with their families, will follow. Even large sums of 
money are often willingly and wisely given as a bonus, 
land is donated, taxes rebated, and other concessions made 
in order to secure those industries and enterprises which 
employ handicraft and attract home-builders. 

While America ought to refuse the vicious, it should 
make a strong bid for the best brain and muscle of the 
world. It should continue to be the refuge for men and 
women with an upward aim in life, no matter what their 
condition or from whence they might come. 

A vigorous policy that should exclude the criminal and 
depraved would at once attract those with higher aims and 
motives. The United States is in a position to invite the 
best manhood and womanhood everywhere. Here should 
be the center and the highest development of the Anglo- 
Saxon race. When we get the best mechanics and other 
requisites we produce the best goods, and when we do 
this the world will seek them and buy them here. 

Paris is the center of fashion, and in consequence France 
reaps all the profits and advantages that a precedent ia 



182 OUR NATION'S NEED, 

fashion can insure. London is the center of the world's 
money power, and as a result England reaps all the bene- 
fits that a precedent in gold-standard heresy can bring. 
So it is possible for the United States to establish a prece- 
dent that shall be characteristic of its life and institu- 
tions. Our precedent should not allure the devotees of 
fashion or beguile the worshipers at the shrine of Mam- 
mon; it should be such as will attract all honest blood and 
brain to our shores that seek and can appreciate in the 
highest sense the benefits of life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. 

THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM. 

Direct legislation, or tlie initiative and referendum, is 
a movement to secure a reform in the methods of enacting 
laws. It originated in Switzerland, the youngest of all re- 
publics. 

It consists in extending the law-making powers to the 
people. It is a true democratic government, wherein the 
people have the power to originate laws and repeal them, 
instead of delegating these powers to representatives, as 
in other countries. 

The plan has been in successful operation in Switzer- 
land since 1874, it having, in the meantime, undergone 
some improvements. The system has been so satisfactory 
that it is attracting widespread attention, and throughout 
the United States efforts are being made to secure its 
adoption. 

It is not only a success, but it is establishing the im- 
portant and too easily forgotten fact that it is entirely 
safe to intrust the governmental affairs of a nation directly 
to the people. 

Switzerland, through the operation of the system, has 
been enabled to adopt many reforms that would otherwise 
have been impossible. The republic already owns its tele- 
graphs and is negotiating for its railroads. A chief ad- 
vantage of the system is that it has proven to be a great 
educator of the people. It brings every voter in close 
touch with legislative proceedings, and popular interest is 
kept alive and the diffusion of economic intelligence pro- 



OVR NATION'S NEED. 183 

moted to the highest degree. The measure is being dili- 
gently advocated in the United States, many of OTir best 
scholars and statesmen heartily indorse it, and it will 
doubtless soon become embodied as a part of ©ur organic 
governmental system. 

Election reform must also always include improvements 
in methods. United States Senators should be elected by 
the direct vote of the people. Few measures are more in 
need of adoption. The IJnited States Senate has degen- 
erated, and its degradation will continue until machine 
politics cease to dictate who shall occupy its chairs. So 
long as money and %oss" influence, instead of votes, makes 
Senators, the true interests of the people will be ignored. 
Our present system of electing Senators is a remnant of 
monarchy. Its continuance can only block and impede 
progress. It is totally incompatible with the higher and 
broader forms of republicanism. 

AN HOTTEST ELECTIOlSr. 

The right of suffrage is the chief pillar in our national 
structure, and an honest ballot is the foundation-stone 
upon which that pillar rests. 

An honest ballot and a fair count is the j&rst and per- 
haps the greatest issue in American politics. Upon se- 
curing these depends the success of all other desirable 
measures. 

Corruption is, it would seem, the sheet-anchor of the 
modern politician. Sentiments and policies are manu- 
factured to suit the occasion, and clubs of voters are 
formed and sold out to the highest bidder, like so many 
sheep, or collected and sold by the dozen, like eggs. To 
meet these contingencies the richest, and in some respects 
the best men we have "chip in" and buy stuffing for the 
ballot-box with as much zeal and earnestness as though it 
were clothing for the naked or food for the starving. The 
public conscience is quick and tender at many points, but 
on the side of politics it is well-nigh dead. In order to 
elect a legislator, a governor, or a president, men will re- 
sort to all the schemes known to trickery and infamy, and 
when their design is accomplished they will settle down 



184 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

as complacently and with as much dignity as though their 
success were due to a special interference of the Omnipo- 
tent. Honesty is almost completely overshadowed in poli- 
tics, because to the bribe-taker it is a most profitable field, 
while to the honest man it offers little pay. It is reliably 
stated that presidential elections have cost from $10,000,- 
000 to $15,000,000. Future triumphs of the money power 
will cost increasing amounts. Some part of the money 
expended at such times goes for legitimate purposes, but 
the most of it is spent in a way to secure the most votes, 
and no questions are asked. 

Bribery promises to become a political high art and the 
chief dependence in carrying the elections. Laws against 
it are almost a dead letter. The surprising thing about it 
is that really good men resort to it. None but sinners 
will sell their votes, but apparently Christians of the most 
circumspect class will contribute money to buy them. 

Of all political questions, that of bribery and dishonesty 
is perhaps the most difficult to meet. There is but one 
sure remedy — an election in which honesty, loyalty to 
principle, and adherence to convictions pay better than 
the offers of the bribe-giver. Level the possessions of 
wealth and bribery will become next to impossible. When 
statesmanship offers the people what belongs to them — 
the rich legacies and opportunities of a free country — 
millionaire politicians will be outdone. 



And they shall build houses and inhabit them; and they 
shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They shall 
not buiid and another inhabit; they shall not plant and an- 
other eat. — Isaiah. 

In the world's broad field of battle, 

In the bivouac of life. 
Be not like dumb, driven cattle; 

Be a hero in the strife. 

— Henry W. Longfellow. 

The great question of the future is money against legisla- 
tion. My friends, you and I will be in our graves long before 
the battle is ended; and unless our children have more cour- 
age and patience than saved this country from slavery, re- 
publican institutions will go down before moneyed corpora- 
tions. — Wendell Phillips. 

Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind 
out of somebody or other. As soon as his breath comes back 
ne very probably begins to expend it in hard words. These 
are the best evidences a man can have that he has said some- 
thing it was time to say. — Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

The American people are interested in but two things, re- 
ligion and politics, and of these their schoolmasters are per- 
mitted to know nothing. — ^Max O'Rell. 

Of all the forms in which corruption can present itself, the 
bribery of office is the most dangerous, because it assumes 
the guise of patriotism to accomplish its fatal sorcery. We 
are often asked, Where is the evidence of corruption? Have 
you seen it? You might as well expect to see the embodied 
forms of pestilence and famine stalking before you as to see 
the latent operations of this insidious power. — George M. 

DUFFIE. 



186 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 187 



CHAPTER XIL 

A DIVIDE-UP AS A POLITICAL ISSUE. 

Politics is the science of government. Its operation in i 
a republic like ours is the vital force that sustains the na-l' 
tional life. Nothing is so potent for good or evil. When 
dominated by error or wrong it fills the land with dread. 
When guided by correct and lofty motives it is our bul- 
wark of safety. Politics has made our history. Through 
it as a medium we must win our victories. To it are in- 
trusted our private fortunes and our public destinies. 
Politics enthrones all with a sacred trust. It is the holy 
ark within which are the oracles of law and the liberties 
of free citizenship. To ignore politics is anarchy; to pol- 
lute it is treason. 

What the country needs most is a new era in politics, 
and what politics needs most is new issues, new men, and 
modern methods. 

To advocate a divide-up would bring a new and ex- 
traordinary power into the political field. Party lines 
would be drawn from new standpoints and party prin- 
ciples would rest upon a new basis. 

To divide up and start even as a political issue would 
in no sense be a fantastical theory or a complicated dogma. 
It would not be a many-sided, complex, and confusing 
mystery that only a few could understand. It would not 
be a fraud, a sham issue, a magnified farce, fostered and 
fanned by either demagogues or fanatics to fool the peo- 
ple. Even a child could understand it, and every intelli- 
gent citizen would know exactly what he was voting for. 

As a political issue it would cover the entire country. 
It would be exactly as big as the United States. It would 
interest all parts of the country alike. It would reach the 
family occupying the most remote corner of Maine, or 
Florida, or California, or the State of Washington. Every 
state, every county, every city and town, every family and 



188 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

fireside, every man, woman and child wonld receive just 
recognition. The nation would become a unit. Faction 
fights would be forgotten. Voters would face an entirely 
new front. All sectional differences between the North and 
the South, the East and the West would be obliterated. It 
would be the cause not of a class or faction, but of all the 
people. 

It would be a gigantic issue. In its magnitude and 
scope it would be without a parallel in all history. But it 
is to be remembered that our nation has become a great 
country. It would not surpass in magnitude the nation 
itself or the duties of its statesmen. 

A divide-up would mean the lifting of over $50,000,- 
000,000 worth of property from its present moorings and 
transferring it into the possession of 50,000,000 people 
who now possess little or nothing. This is more wealth 
and more people than the entire nation possessed twenty 
years ago. But a tremendous power is needed to free en- 
slaved citizenship, to destroy political corruption, and 
purify the ballot-box. No force yet devised has been able 
to correct these great powers of evil. The mistake made 
is that men conceive the idea that these things can be cor- 
rected or destroyed without cost. The great defect in 
present political issues is that they lack the element of 
force. They fail to secure a following. They are too 
local, too narrow, too fQ^tional, and fail to secure the 
alliance required to win. We try to prune instead of up- 
rooting. We cultivate sentiment, but drown convictions; 
we endeavor to reform, but avoid revolutions. 

The history of almost any campaign shows the utter 
hopelessness of ordinary reform issues, be they ever so de- 
sirable or essential to the public good. During the quiet 
interim between elections such issues are born and grow 
with much promise of success. They are usually cham- 
pioned by able and courageous men. They enter the po- 
litical field full of vigor and hope. They are advocated 
with all the intensity of conviction and appeal to the high- 
est and noblest in men. But when a political campaign 
arrives party war-horses become aroused and the tradi- 
tional hosts rally around the fossilized party banners and 
follow the call of their masters. All the tricks of political 



OUM NATION'S NEED. 189 

art begin to operate. Paid orators befog the air over issues 
antiquated and dead. A subsidized press, like a myriad 
of vassals, day by day not only distort facts and delude 
the people, but with figures ridiculously small and predic- 
tions cunningly dwarfed hopelessly blight the prospects of 
every new issue. The conservative factions of the old par- 
ties will, if need be, join forces in order to make their per- 
manent supremacy secure. Money flows freely and men 
are bought and sold like sheep. Brass bands and badges, 
sky-roc4cefs and parades win the floaters and fickle in 
faith. These thin^^s, with increasing intensity, are kept 
up until election day. When the struggle is ended and 
the votes counted the reform issue finds itself defeated and 
perhaps dead and buried in oblivion. These facts teach 
us that an issue to succeed must be greater than the do- 
minions of party or party bosses ; stronger than the power 
of money or the slavery of labor ; deeper than the indiffer- 
ence of the masses or the apathy of ignorance. 

We must learn the fact that only a great question will 
arouse the people and win in politics. When reform 
measures do triumph they almost invariably fail to ac- 
complish their intended end. Said the Hon. John Wana- 
maker, Americans merchant prince, in a recent important 
address : "Pennsylvania has not made an inch-step of real 
advance in good government for thirty years. She has 
talked about it, marched and countermarched under and 
over all sorts of platforms and pledges of reform, and 
landed every time at the same old place.^' And what is 
true of Pennsylvania is true of almost every state in the 
Union, It U also true of the nation as a whole, and of 
every county, city, and town. We have espoused reforms 
and elected reform presidents, reform governors, reform 
mayors, and reform legislators. We have been lured first 
by one shibboleth and then another. Good men have stood 
up to be knocked down. Ideals have been formulated into 
party platforms only to make the success of the opposite 
more secure. When a good man is elected to office he finds 
himself handicapped by intrenched powers long estab- 
lished that rule the field. 

No measure can hope to win unless it interest all the 
people. Nor can it profit by victory unless it represent 



190 OTIB NATION'S NEED. 

the popular will. Fugitive issues and sectional questions 
only embarrass political force and prevent progress. The 
imperative need of American politics is a vital question, 
broad and great as the nation itself, that will arouse the 
attention of every citizen and every fireside. 

A divide-up would be a radical issue. It would aim not 
at symptoms, but at the disease ; not to simply palliate, but 
to cure. Most of the issues launched forth simply pro- 
pose to correct unfair methods, while permitting unjust 
conditions to remain. If unjust laws and unfair methods 
have produced millionaires and paupers, the usual remedy 
would simply repeal the law and correct the methods, but 
let the real trouble — ^the millionaires and the paupers — 
continue. 

These half-way measures are neither practicable nor 
honest. When 1,000,000 men have absorbed the wealth 
of the nation and hold warrantee deeds and gilt-edged 
securities for it, it is not fair to then pass laws to prohibit 
others from growing rich and leave unmolested the 1,000,- 
000 who have absorbed the wealth of the country. Such 
laws would inevitably establish an invulnerable aristoc- 
racy. The Government would at once adopt paternalism 
in favor of the few. Legislation of this sort would be as 
a great gulf, with the heaven of wealth upon one side and 
the perdition of poverty upon the other side, forming a 
chasm across which few or none could pass. It is as es- 
sential that vicious conditions be corrected as that cor- 
rupt laws be repealed. If laws and methods have been 
faulty, and, in consequence, the fruits of the toil and en- 
terprise of four centuries have been concentrated in the 
hands of a few men, the condition, as well as the laws or 
methods through which it resulted, should be removed. A 
law or a method can be no worse or more in need of cor- 
rection than its evil effects are. It is quite as important 
and as much a function of real justice to return plunder 
to the owners as to make more stringent laws against pil- 
fering. 

But the facts go still further. The conditions need 
correcting far more than the laws do. It does not appear 
that laws bearing upon the subject have either produced 
ox prevented extremes of wealth and poverty. These 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 191 

things are the result of human nature, not of law or the 
lack of it. Moreover, we can compel a division of prop- 
erty ; but it is impossible to regulate human nature through 
legislation. It is a fact well recognized that we have too 
many laws already. The rich as a class do not obey those 
we have. Patriotic as most rich men are, wealth ever 
strives to be a law unto itself. There are few fences it 
will not climb; there are few statutes it does not feel at 
liberty to break. 

The uselessness of laws intended to govern the special 
duties of the rich is well illustrated by the manner in 
which they escape the laws regulating taxation. Income 
taxes and all other similar enactments have proved futile 
wherever tried. As soon as the rich are taxed to an un- 
usual extent, they increase their sources of revenue by rais- 
ing rents, lowering wages, or advancing profits through 
trusts and combines. Taxing the rich to establish finan- 
cial equity has been tried in England and other countries 
where there is not only an income tax, but various other 
revenues paid entirely by the rich. Yet in the midst of 
them the rich have grown richer and the poor poorer. It 
is the wage-earner, the renter, the borrower, and the con- 
sumer who invariably foot the bill. There are many who 
imagine that an income tax would remedy present condi- 
tions, and such a law has been strongly advocated. But 
there are many reasons why it would entirely fail to fill 
its intended mission. It would only more securely fortify 
the rich and more deeply enslave the poor. 

As an issue, to divide up and start even would bring 
genuine patriotism into politics. In its discussion, obe- 
dience tov^ard God and justice toward mankind would at 
once become a basic principle. Love of country would be 
enthroned. It would be an issue between patriotism and 
selfishness, manhood and mammonism, gallantry and 
greed. It would enlist the greatest in brain, the noblest 
in heart, and the grandest in character. It would tend 
to collect and crystallize into a tangible unit, at the bal- 
lot-box, a multitude of forces now being wasted in isolated 
efforts. Politics would get the benefit of powers now 
operating outside of the political field, but which legiti- 
mately belong to it. There are a multitude of organized 



192 OUB NATION'S NEED. 

influences, representing not only the best intentions, but 
great political power if directly applied, which are now 
conflicting elements, and which, in consequence, diminish 
rather than augment the better political forces of the 
nation. Thus it is that the forces of evil, by being con- 
centrated into a political unit, are triumphant at elec- 
tions, while the forces for good, divided and confused, are 
defeated and destroyed. 

By giving patriotism a purpose men would be aroused 
into concentrated action. What politics needs and what 
it must have before the best element is again triumphant 
is a campaign inspired by lofty motives. A moral con- 
flict that demanded the courage of the old, the chivalry of 
the young, and the devoted loyalty of every one would be 
of untold benefit to all concerned. 

Politics needs saturating with a vital principle. Lead- 
ers would rather be patriots than pettifoggers. The 
masses would rather defend a noble cause than be dupes 
of political bosses. When brought face to face with 
duties demanding unselfish devotion and sacrifice, man- 
kind has seldom deserted or made a retreat. Men are 
never so true as when enlisted in a noble cause; never so 
brave as when facing a real danger; never so sure to 
attain the mark as when the reaching requires their best. 
The most endearing charm of history is the records of 
manhood tested and tried and found to be true. Whether 
following the leadership of Joan of Arc, a Washington, or 
a Grant, men have made a record of which posterity has 
ever had cause to be proud. No people were ever more 
patriotic than Americans, and Americans were never more 
loyal than now. All they need is a visible purpose and an 
awakened motive. It is only v/hen purposes grow dim that 
men grow weak; it is only when incentives disappear that 
duty forsakes its post and retires to sleep. Our military 
force is over 10,000,000 strong, and should a sufficient 
emergency of war occur it would arise as one man and 
offer its all for humanity's cause. And it is no less strong 
in an emergency of peace. 

With a divide-up as an issue, an honest election would 
be assured. No matter how reckless bribery might become, 
it would be overshadowed by personal interests. At such 



OUR NATION ^8 NEED. 193 

an election every man^s vote would mean $1,000 in prop- 
erty for himself and the same for his wife and each of his 
children. If a yonng man were anticipating matrimony 
it would- mean $1,000 in property for himself and the 
same for his bride. To the business man it would mean 
a revolution in his trade. To the professional man it 
would mean an increased patronage among those able to 
pay. To the farmer it would mean a market, at a good 
price, for his products. To the laboring man and wage- 
earner it would mean industrial liberty and financial op- 
portunity. To womanhood and childhood it would mean 
an inspiring interest never equaled before. To the rich it 
would mean a chance to display executive ability in be- 
half of mankind instead of bestowing all upon self. 

Should a division of property become a political issue, 
the most telling point, perhaps, against it would be the 
embarrassment and humiliation that would be visited upon 
the rich. To the wealthy it would be a severe trial. This 
is a fact all must admit. To see the fruits of years of toil 
and energy swept away and distributed to others, in many 
instances to those unworthy, would be an ordeal surpass- 
ingly great. To those especially who have grown old in 
merited honor, success, and luxury, it would be a humilia- 
tion, keen and deep. There are princes among men in 
the realm of business and enterprise, and the honor and 
affection bestowed upon them are such that a king might 
envy. For them to willingly submit would show a rare 
martyrdom ; for them to favor such an undertaking would 
be a heroism sublime. Indeed, the just claims of the rich 
add immensely to the gravity of the measure. It imposes 
the ultimatum of responsibility. It joins it with the In- 
finite as a sacred trust. It would be a crime, heinous be- 
yond degree, if ruthlessly done. The parable of the rich 
fool is a warning against forcing a division of property 
through selfish motives. No man should advocate such 
a measure until its justice, its need, and its wisdom are as 
clear as the brightness of the noonday sun. 

But viewed in a proper light a divide-up would lessen, 
and not increase, the misfortunes and humiliations of the 
wealthy. How fickle is fortune now! Financial wrecks 
are to be found everywhere. Chauncey Depew, who has 



194 OTTR NATION' 8 NEED. 

had a remarkable clientage among rich men, is reported 
as saying that his experience "has been that eight-tenths 
of them lose their fortunes during their lifetime." How 
the princes of the world have been humiliated by poverty 
during their declining years ! Columbus, Pitt, Clay, Jef- 
ferson, Grant, Walter Scott, and a legion of others equally 
worthy are striking illustrations of how little fortune ven« 
erates worth and age. 

There are as many who lose their all in a few years 
imder present conditions as would suffer in a general di- 
vision of property. The "bulls" and the "bears," the 
speculators and kings of finance who corner commodities 
and enforce panics, crush more homes and blight more 
lives in a single generation than would meet disaster by 
leveling wealth among all the people. 

A divide-up would not cause, but it would prevent 
wholesale financial shipwreck. It would give stability to 
wealth, and this cannot be done so long as great extremes 
prevail or a few control all others. It would stifle spec- 
ulation and remove the jeopardy of fluctuating prices. It 
would be wise statesmanship to level possessions, if for no 
other reason than to make the getting of a livelihood uni- 
versally easy and property more secure and stable. 

That the rich would be obliged to vacate their present 
mansions and that the best portions of our cities would 
be vacated; that there would be no rich to purchase val- 
uables and high-priced goods, and that, in consequence, a 
most desirable market would be destroyed; and that we 
need the inspiration which the presence of the wealthy 
and successful impart, and which would be lost, are among 
the many considerations easily woven into political argu- 
ments against a general division of property. 

But the mansions of the rich are scarcely occupied now. 
A goodly portion of the wealthy maintain from two to five 
residences, and not a few own a private yacht upon which 
to disport as a pastime. The most magnificent private 
residence in America has cost, it is claimed, $4,000,000, 
and its owner, since its completion, has occupied it less 
than thirty days each year. If money is worth 6 per 
cent, interest, every day spent in this palace has cost its 
owner $8,000, to say nothing of servants, repairs, taxes. 



OXTR NATION '8 NEED. 195 

and sumptuous fare. As a matter of fact, the mansions 
of the rich are the least used — the most reclusive and the 
most superfluous portion of our national wealth. They 
are chiefly located in large towns and cities, and they 
would, under the new social conditions following a divide- 
up, serve a most useful and opportune purpose as school 
buildings, libraries, art galleries, hospitals, and for other 
scientiflc, educational, and social uses. 

As far as the purchases of the rich are concerned, much 
of their shopping is already done in Europe, and a large 
share of what they purchase at home has crossed the sea 
and in no way benefits home industry. It is the rich and 
the following they secure, more than anything else, that 
brings foreign labor into competition with American in- 
dustry. 

The presence of the rich is not a wholesome inspiration 
to mankind. To be overstimulated in the pursuit of 
wealth is only a curse. Men were placed upon the earth 
for a nobler mission than becoming infatuated with the 
glamour and glory of riches. To trail after the votaries 
of Mammon prevents normal ambition and always jeop- 
ardizes the motives and success of the young. It is also 
to be remembered that the rich, comparatively speaking, 
are very few in number. Where one succeeds many fail. 
The aged, as a rule, are poor. Those who have worked the 
hardest often have the least. Those who most deserve 
often come down to old age with a pittance. The rich and 
the poor have grown old together. They are organically 
related in every phase of life. Both are largely the result 
of circumstances over which they exercised only partial 
control. To no small degree the poor have made the few 
rich and the rich have made the many poor. A divide-up 
would harmonize divergent conditions resulting from co- 
ordinate energies and activities. A division of property 
would mean a comfortable allowance to all, and the meas- 
ure, in addition, includes a pension to all aged and invalid 
persons, thus placing the comforts of life within reach of 
every one. 

To the unprejudiced student of economics in the broad- 
est sense, nothing is more evident than that a divide-up 
of property would benefit more people^ with injury to less^ 



196 OTIB NATION' 8 NEED. 

than any other measure within the power of citizenship. 
^Torty thousand men own one-half of the wealth of the 
United States, while 40,000,000 people have practically 
nothing." Each one of these 40,000 men owns that which 
represents the labor, life, and character of 1,000 of his 
neighbors. "One hundred fortunes aggregate $3,000,- 
000,000." This is equal to $1,000 for each man, woman, 
and child in Masachusetts and Ehode Island together, or 
both Georgia and Louisiana, or the States of California, 
Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and North and 
South Dakota combined. 

It might be claimed, on the basis of reliable estimates 
relative to the subject, that were a division of property 
and the cancellation of debts made, not more than one 
voter, or family, or child in fifteen would lose financially. 
And when we remember that great wealth is an actual 
curse to the most of those who possess it, it must be ad- 
mitted that the measure would be an unmixed blessing 
to almost every individual in the nation, no matter what 
his or her present social or financial condition may be. 
When we realize the wonderful diversities of wealth and 
poverty that prevail and consider the age in which we 
live, the privileges we enjoy as citizens, the religion we 
profess to believe, the possibilities within our reach, the 
civilizing forces which bewilder us upon every side, and the 
democratic spirit that, on account of cowardice and in- 
difference, allows the condition to continue and grow more 
pronounced, it brings to view an object-lesson that has 
had few parallels in all history. While we are more ad- 
vanced and more progressive than any other nation is now 
or ever was, yet we are, at the same time, further from 
what we might be or what we must become to accomplish 
our mission as the leader and exemplar among the na- 
tions of the world. 

Should a divide-up and start-even become a political 
issue, its discussion and execution would in many of its 
features resemble the Civil War. The primary cause of 
one was chattel slavery ; of the other, industrial and finan- 
cial slavery. In one instance the rich owned men, both 
life and body; in the other, the rich own not the bodies, 
but the lives of men. Three hundred thousand men 



OTJB NATION '8 NEED. 197 

owned all the slaves. The country has increased fourfold, 
and four times as many, or 1,200,000 persons practically 
own all the wealth now. About one man in fifteen lost 
his slaves, and about one man in fifteen would lose his 
wealth in a division of property. The war established 
the authority of the Government over a single state or 
combination of states; a division of property would es- 
tablish the authority of the Government over individual 
ownership or combination of capital. The war set the 
bodies of men free ; a divide-up would liberate human life. 
It would establish, in the broader and higher sense, that 
fundamental principle promulgated by the great authority 
Blackstone, that "sovereignty and legislation are indeed 
convertible terms ; one cannot exist without the other." 

Many would doubtless oppose a divide-up and start-even 
on the ground that it would establish an undesirable prece- 
dent. It would be claimed that in a short time there 
would be a clamor for another division. To undergo the 
process once need not necessarily establish the measure as 
a settled policy of the nation. It would not make an- 
other division in the future inevitable. Another division 
might be desirable at the end of fifty, a hundred, or a 
thousand years, but future generations, it is to be hoped, 
will be, more than we are now, equal to the exigencies of 
the age in which they shall live. As an incident of his- 
tory it would serve as a wholesome check to unbridled am- 
bition and to the growth of morbid extremes in the future. 

The question arises. Who would be the chief cham- 
pions and promoters of a divide-up and start-even should 
it become an issue in our national politics ? 

Both rich and poor would undoubtedly favor the meas- 
ure, and both would oppose it. 

Viewed superficially, it is easy to imagine that in the 
midst of such an issue the people would sit down and esti- 
mate their wealth and count the number of persons in 
their families, and if they concluded that a divide-up 
would be a gain they would favor it ; if it promised a loss 
they would oppose it. As more than nine men out of 
ten would gain by the adoption of the measure, it is not 
difficult to imagine that there would be a general stam- 
pede in favor of it, and that such a beneficent cause would 



198 OVR NATION'S NEED. 

gain an easy victory. But such expectations would not be 
realized. The dominion of wealth and the bondage of 
wage-earning and poverty are not so easily overcome. It 
would mean an intense struggle. It would require the 
most unselfish patriotism and a display of the highest type 
of heroism. 

That many rich persons would heartily support the 
measure cannot be doubted. It is to be remembered that 
a divide-up and start-even would involve a great principle, 
and principles win followers from those who sacrifice as 
well as from those who profit. While this is true, the 
rich as a class would vehemently oppose it. When men 
gain advantages over their fellow-men, either in wealth 
or power, they seldom voluntarily give up their dominion. 
If history is a reliable teacher, it must be expected that 
many of those who should most zealously and forcibly 
support the measure would be its bitterest and most re- 
lentless foes. 

As in past conflicts, many who are eminent in religion, 
distinguished in learning, and prominent in society and 
politics would doubtless assail such a reform and vehe- 
mently denounce it as wrong in principle and vicious in 
practice. While a large share of the Christian element 
would here find its ideal in politics and heartily enlist in 
the crusade for justice and righteousness, not a few would 
throw their influence against it. Of all the forces in the 
world, perhaps that which has operated under the form 
of religion has been at times the most desperate enemy 
and opponent of genuine progress. About one-third of 
our population is professedly Christian. Over $30,000,- 
000,000 in property belong to those who pray : "Thy 
kingdom come." It is a pleasant thought to believe that 
these people would rejoice at the opportunity to unite in 
uplifting humanity with their wealth. But no class of 
people are more disappointing in the face of a noble cause 
or a great crisis than those looked up to as the great and 
good. 

For has learning been a leader or even a faithful sup- 
porter of progressive reforms. Says Benjamin Kidd : "It 
has to be confessed that in England during the nineteenth 
century the educated classes, in almost all the great po- 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 199 

litical changes that have been effected, have taken the side 
of the party afterward admitted to have been in the wrong. 
They have invariably opposed at the time the measures 
they have subsequently come to defend and justify." And 
the record of scholars in politics in our own land has been 
little better. Eeferring to an eventful period in our own 
history, culminating in the crusade against slavery, Wen- 
dell Phillips said: "Amid this battle of giants scholar- 
ship sat dumb for thirty years, until imminent deadly peril 
convulsed it into action; and colleges, in despair, gave to 
the army that help they had refused to the market-place 
and the rostrum." 

The professional office-holder and the political boss, 
whether higli or low, would, of course, oppose any measure 
which should threaten their political prestige. Political 
corruption is one of the curses that a division of property 
is intended to destroy, and those who profit by it would 
denounce the measure as diabolical and treasonable. 

Conservatives would sincerely deplore and lament the 
disaster which, to their vision, would inevitably follow a 
division of property. Fogies would honestly predict social 
chaos and political ruin. Pessimists would be horror- 
stricken. These experiences have characterized every 
great advance in history, and human nature is likely to 
continue the same to the end of time. 

The chief promoters of a divide-up would come from 
the great middle class, from men who are neither worship- 
ers of Mammon nor slaves to its power. There are many 
reasons why this would be true. Sympathy is a more pow- 
erful incentive than self-interest. The most zealous and 
effective champions of justice and liberty are those who 
witness wrong rather than those who suffer its oppressions. 
True heroism emanates not from the head nor from the 
pocket-book, but it is an impulse of the heart. It is to 
be expected, therefore, that a great issue like a divide-up 
and start-even would be chiefly supported by those most 
deeply aroused by the principles involved. This is a wise 
provision of the Creator in preparing mankind for great 
epochs in human affairs, because it requires convictions 
strongly rooted in the depths of character, rather than 



200 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

mere sentiment, to champion a great cause and carry it to 
success. 

The great middle classes are, after all, the most in- 
tensely concerned. The merchant and the mechanic, the 
farmer and the laborer, the professional man and the man 
of moderate means are the ones whose interests, under 
present conditions, are most in danger. These classes are 
being crowded to the wall. They are being forced to ac- 
cept a life of struggle to ward off actual bankruptcy and 
poverty. Under present conditions it is only a question 
of time when the middle class of mankind — ^those occupy- 
ing the natural, normal sphere — will become almost ex- 
tinct. There are multitudes of men belonging to these 
classes who would temporarily lose through a division of 
property, but on account of improved conditions they 
would soon more than regain their temporary loss. Men 
who are now "land poor'^ and "property burdened^^ would 
have less, but what they should possess would afford a bet- 
ter income. 

Every business man knows that climbing the road to. 
success is far more pleasurable and full of charm than the 
goal at the end. No matter how much energy and effort it 
costs, genuine success in effort and energy is a rich reward. 
N"othing so inspires diligence and industry and rectitude 
of character as a reasonably successful business career. 
The best inheritance a father can bestow upon a son is not 
riches, but opportunity and a clear sense of responsibility. 
There are thousands of sons and daughters who, under 
present conditions, will inherit fortunes only to lose them 
and die poor. How incomparably more sensible and 
blessed it would be if these sons and daughters were given 
less to start with, but freed from the jeopardies which 
now threaten the financial interests of almost every one. 

All that is needed to insure the success of a divide-up 
and start-even is that the people become fully informed 
upon and interested in the subject. Should it once gain 
a foothold upon the popular mind and heart, its growth 
would be inevitable. Not in the entire historj^ of Amer- 
ican polities has any measure so appealed to the highest 
and noblest in citizenship as would this one. Under the 
influence of proper leaders and zealously, aggressively, and 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 201 

intelligently pressed throughout the land, perhaps no 
measure has ever secured the unanimous approval that it 
would receive at the ballot-box. 

There are many reasons, based upon sound considera- 
tions, for believing that in a campaign in which a divide- 
up and start-even and naturally allied questions formed 
the dominant issue, every state in the Union, by an over- 
whelming majority, would favor its adoption. Could 
party affiliations be forgotten and political intimidations 
entirely subdued, the verdict in its favor would be well- 
nigh unanimous. 



Now there are diversities of gifts. — Paxil. 

Tor the heart grows rich in giving; 

All its wealth is living grain, 
Seeds which mildew in the garner, 

Scattered, fill with gold the plain. 

— ^Mrs. Charles. 

It may be discovered that the true veins of wealth are 
purple — and not in rock, but in flesh — perhaps even that the 
final outcome and consummation of all wealth is in producing 
as many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy- 
hearted human creatures. — Ruskin. 

Labor, intelligent, manly, independent, thinking and acting 
for itself, earning its own wages, accumulating those wages 
into capital; educating childhood, maintaining worship, claim- 
ing the right of elective franchise, and helping to uphold the 
great fabric of the state. This is American labor, and all my 
sympathies are with it; and my voice, till I am dumb, will be 
for it. — Daniel Webster. 

Why should we imagine that because we now have liberty 
we must always possess it, however supine we may be? If 
freedom is worth fightinr for it is worth preserving. Let us 
never listen to the voice which would calm all our apprehen- 
sions and lull us into slumbers of security; into a quiet which 
migiit be repose indeed, but would soon be the leaden sleep of 
despotism. — Charles G. Atherton. 

Way down in the heart there is a tenderness for human 
self-sacrifice which makes it seem loftier than the love of 
glory; for it reveals the eternal possibilities of the human 
soul. Wars and sieges pass away, and the great intellectual 
efforts cease to stir our hearts; but the man who sacrifices 
himself to his fellows lives forever. — Thomas B. Reed. 



m 



OUR NATIOIfl'S NEED. 203 



CHAPTER XIIL 

A DIVIDE-UP AND NATURAL INEQUALITIES. 

A DIVIDE-UP and start-even would promote normal in- 
equalities among men. 

Variety is a law of nature. 

Men show diversities of ability, of temperament, and of 
talent almost without limit. No two are alike. But these 
diversities form a complete whole only when the relations 
are harmonious in action and reciprocal in accomplish- 
ment. For mankind to grow monstrosities or to become 
homogeneous like sheep is a calamity. To allow the one 
to monopolize the field or to compel the other by force of 
law would be a public crime. 

It is to be remembered that man is both an animal and 
an intellectual force. The physical needs of all are prac- 
tically the same; the intellectual possibilities may give to 
each an individuality entirely unlike any one else. 

There are many who honestly believe that inequalities 
as they now exist are not only fair and proper, but essen- 
tial to progress and civilization. A standing argument 
in defense of present conditions is that some men, on ac- 
count of inherent abilities, require much, and others, in 
consequence of limited faculties, require very little, to sup- 
ply their needs. It is also a common belief that extremes 
of wealth and poverty are entirely normal and the result 
of natural causes, and that on account of them enterprise 
and business are developed to a degree otherwise unob- 
tainable. 

That wealth is necessary to progress and enterprise all 
must admit. Bu^ it is not required that this wealth should 
be in the possession of a few. It is contrary to all the 
teachings of the past that it is more essential that a few 
have great wealth than that all possess a reasonable share, 
^uch a condition has wrought tho downfall of too many, 



204 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

natrons to neednfurther proof of its inevitable tendency to 
national decay. 

That men widely differ in talent and energy is a law 
that must be recognized. That the physical needs of men 
are identical is also a law that mnst be obeyed. 

The general and ordinary physical requirements of all 
mankind are essentially the same. All are born naked, 
helpless, dependent, and ignorant. All are subject to the 
same physical laws. All have a imiform bodily tempera- 
ture of 98.6° Fahrenheit. All require substantially the 
same kinds and quantity of food, clothing, and shelter. 
The domestic and social needs of all are similar. The 
highest development of the race demands that what is 
necessary for one exist within the reach of all. 

The food requirements of mankind are remarkably uni- 
form. Bread, water, salt, milk, fish, fruits, and animal 
and vegetable food are used by all mankind. 

The world is clothed almost entirely from six sub- 
stances — cotton, wool, silk, linen, fur, and the skin of ani- 
mals. The clothing needed by the millionaire and the 
farmer, the dude and the day laborer, the society belle and 
the servant are essentially the same. 

Houses are composed of a still smaller number of ma- 
terials. Wood, iron, glass, brick, and stone of some kind 
furnish materials to build the city, the hamlet and the 
farm-house, the palace of the rich and the hovel of the 
poor. 

Our social needs are exceedingly similar. All require 
the advantages of schools, churches, books, newspapers, 
recreations, amusements, and the endless variety of civiliz- 
ing forces. Merchants supply all from the same markets ; 
physicians treat all with the same remedies. Courts, if 
just, apply the same laws to all alike; ministers preach the 
same Gospel to the entire world. Fundamentally, we are 
all upon a level and members of one great family. 

While all men are created equal and up to a certain 
point their needs are similar, yet beyond this point a 
wonderful variety is displayed. It might be said that by 
nature men are equally endowed, but that God interposes 
and crowns the work of nature with an endless diversity 
of gifts and powers. Some are given one talent, some 



OUB NATION'S NEED, 205 

five, and some ten. Some are financiers, some are skillful 
with hand, others active in brain. Some love wealth; 
some love fame and honor; some are domestic and reclu- 
sive. 

That the abilities and broadened faculties of some men 
require more costly surroundings, and consequently a 
greater suppJy of wealth than others, is entirely true. Some 
are satisfied with next to nothing and with simple exist- 
ence, while others desire and strive for a liberal portion of 
material comforts. While these extremes are visible 
everywhere, it is also true that where wants are few the 
ability to secure is meager, and where the needs are many 
the ability to supply them, if normal conditions exist, is 
not wanting. Indeed, it is, as a rule, easier for the gifted 
to supply their greater needs thr^i for the ignorant and 
apathetic to secure bare necessities. 

How shall we supply these actual and uniform needs of 
all, and also make it possible for special merit to receive 
its special rewards? A division of property would solve 
the problem exactly. Everybody would then be assured 
actual necessitieSo And those who possess talent, or abil- 
ity, or special energy would have all the advantages of a 
good start and a fair opportunity. The world would in- 
crease in wants and it would be able and willing to pay 
for them. He who rendered the highest service or gave 
the most would secure the greatest reward. 

The most radical champion of inequalities, if he be sin- 
cere, must admit that they should mean special merit or 
the lack of it, and that, as far as possible, all should start 
from a common level. When riches are the result of favor 
without merit it 12 a public reproach, and poverty that is 
due to lack of opportunity is a public disgrace. 

With a fev/ exceptions, the present great accumulations 
of wealth do not represent any special services to the 
race. They have been inherited or else obtained through 
a bold and determined struggle to get rich regardless of 
the claims of others. Financiering has become a high art. 
The old-fashioned way of getting rich by long devotion to 
some legitimate business is becoming obsolete. It has 
become a matter of chance — ^the prize to the man who 
wins. As a class the rich possess no extraordinary quali- 
ties of mind, talent, or character^ 



206 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

The prevailing mad rush for gain not only crushes the 
ignorant and indifferent into despair, but it embarrasses 
all who are not specially gifted at money-making. Men 
can be found everywhere who have marked abilities and 
brilliant intellects and who are capable of the highest use- 
fulness, but who, on account of perverted industry, are 
forced to eke out an existence struggling against the pri- 
vations of poverty. They are not good financiers. Many 
of these men are the salt of the earth. They have large 
souls and warm hearts^ but their noble impulses and power 
to achieve and bless their age are swallowed up in a strug- 
gle for bread. 

Those who uphold existing inequalities never carry their 
reasoning to its logical conclusions. If existing condi- 
tions are just and desirable, it follows that the rich are 
those deserving riches and the poor are those deserving 
poverty. It implies that millionaires have simply reaped 
their just reward and that the poor have encountered their 
legitimate portion. This theory also declares that the 
wealth of the country in the possession of the few is where 
it benefits humanity most, and that the masses are better 
provided for and more contented than they would be if 
each possessed a reasonable amount of property. It in- 
cludes the belief that neglected childhood, forsaken age, 
and industrial bondage are a necessary characteristic of 
civilization, and that the tyranny of despotism and the op- 
pression of heathenish slavery are natural and commend- 
able if operated under a new form and clothed in a modern 
garb. 

A divide-up and start-even would not, therefore, mean 
equality socially, intellectually, or even financially. It 
would simply remove unjust and unnatural inequalities 
now prevailing, and make it possible for more natural and 
legitimate inequalities to occur. It would, to the fullest 
degree, give all a fair start and abridge the highest possi- 
bilities of no one. It would place no man in a strait- 
jacket, and all would be free. 

The adoption of the measure would be in full harmony 
with the scientific fact that all men are created equal, and 
in certain respects the needs of all are uniform, and the 
equally important fact that in actual life men show a great 
Idiversityj pf powers and talents, and some require wideE 



UB NA TION 'S NEED. 207 

fields of action than others and deserve special measures 
of reward. 

One of the first lessons a divide-up would teach is that 
riches and the lack of it have caused false standards to 
prevail, and that genuine worth of intellect, of ability, and 
of character have not received just recognition. The rich 
are now our special dictators. They dominate in society, 
in business, in the Church. Money is power and influ- 
ence, and those who possess it are catered to and consulted, 
and their opinions and advice are accepted as the wisdom 
of the age. 

Should a division of property be made and all be forced 
to start from the same general level, new and natural 
qualities would divide men into classes. Genuine ability 
and worth would lead men to position and power. The 
best doctor or preacher would get the best pay. The most 
useful man would secure the best income. The fittest, and 
not the richest, would attain to eminence. Men would 
cease to own each other, and the ^l3oss'^ who now has noth- 
ing but a "barrel" with which to gain popular favor would 
become a political relic. When officials who were honest, 
instead of professional politicians, should rule in office; 
when teachers, instead of fossils, should shape public opin- 
ion; when patriots, instead of puppets, should make our 
laws — these officials and teachers and patriots would be 
the favored among men. 

Those filling high positions in politics and enterprise 
would then be the servants, not the masters, of the many. 
Now one man employs, dictates to, or discharges at will a 
score, a hundred, a thousand; but under the new condi- 
tions a score, or a hundred, or a thousand would choose 
their rulers and leaders. While the many would be, in- 
dividually, under the authority of one, the one would, in 
return, be subject to the united will of the many. In- 
equalities would continue to exist and develop, but they 
would, more than now, represent natural qualities of mind 
and character and be the legitimate result of natural 
causes. Instead of class distinction regulated by property 
and money, mankind would be measured by just levels — 
by talent, by special gifts, by mental endowments, by abil- 
ity, and by other legitimate forces with which life is so 
pregnant. 



A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. — Solomon, 

He sings of Brotherhood, and joy and peace, 

Of days when jealousies and hate shall cease; 

When war shall die, and man's progressive mind \ 

Soar unfettered as its God designed. 

— Mackay. 

We cannot be happy but in the society of one another; and 
from one another we daily receive, or may receive, important 
services. These conditions recommend the great duty of uni- 
versal benevolence, which is not more beneficial to others than 
to ourselves; for it makes us happy in our own minds and 
amiable in the eyes of all who know us; it even promotes 
bodily health, and it prepares the soul for every virtuous 
impression; while malevolent passions debase the understand- 
ing, harden the heart, and make a man disagreeable to others 
and a torment to himself. — James Beattie. 

What we have most to desire is to make our countrymen 
think. — ^William E. Gladstone. 

The worst charge that can be made against a Christian is 
that he attempts to justify the existing social order. — George 
D. Hereon. 

If you suffer the poor to grow up as animals they may 
chance to become wild beasts and rend you. — ^Danton. 

A religion of effortless adoration may be a religion for an 
angel, but never for a man. Not in the contemplative, but in 
the active, lies true hope; not in rapture, but in reality, lies 
true life; not in the realms of ideals, but among tangible 
things, is man's sanetifieation wrought. — ^Deummond. 



S08 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 209 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

SOCIAL ADVANTAGE OF A DIVIDE-UP. 

Were a divide-up of property to take place, it would 
give opportunity to recast society and organize a system of 
culture whereby social and ethical training would become 
a part of our national life. This is one of the country's 
greatest needs. Our social life at present is little less than 
chaos. 

Man's higher nature is a trinity, a blending of the in- 
tellectual, social, and moral. The intellectual and the 
moral are provided for, but the social nature — the central 
element of our make-up — is left to shift for itself. 

The intellectual is provided for chiefly by the public 
school. Our common school system is supposed to give 
every child in the nation opportunity to gain at least the 
rudiments of an education. Nearly 500,000 teachers are 
employed and paid from the public treasury of States and 
counties, and three-fourths of all children of school age 
are enrolled as pupils. School-houses are found every- 
where, and, including colleges^ our educational system is 
one of the most thoroughly organized and universally sup- 
ported forces in the country. 

The moral nature of mankind is provided for by the 
Church and its auxiliaries. Nearly 100,000 ministers face 
from 20,000,000 to 40,000,000 of our people every Sun- 
day in the year to dispense moral and spiritual truths. 
Over 10,000,000 scholars are taught by over 1,000,000 
teachers in our Sunday-schools. Auxiliaries of various 
kinds are operated and supported by millions of faithful 
men, women, and children. Churches are located every- 
where and represent every shade of belief. While entirely 
divorced from politics and from the state, the Church, not 
only as a national, but as a world-wide institution, shows 
that cohesive affinities are not only strong, but universally 
prevalent among the race. 



210 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

But the social nature is neglected. JSTo concrete effort 
ever attempts to hold mankind together socially. When 
children quit school no further intellectual training is, as 
a rule, ever thought of. They are turned into the street. 
Not only the Church, but all organizations must search for 
their recruits among the highways and hedges. 

Between the school and the Church there is a wide so- 
cial chasm — an uncultivated but essential field of real life. 
Social and ethical culture, except to a favored few, must 
be caught on the fly. Eecreation is a mere matter of 
chance. Amusements are dealt out haphazard. Fun is 
an accident. Entertainment is an unknown quantity. 
Sports are social renegades and money-making schemes. 

The social field has become the resort of all kinds of in- 
vaders. In the sweet name of charity wealth will enter 
the social field, and, dressed in diamonds and decollete, 
dance itself giddy. In the name of art vulgarity will 
prate in tinsel and transparent gauze to win a livelihood. 
In the name of religion really good people will pitch their 
tent in the social field and with shady financial schemes 
liquidate antiquated church debts. Theaters are run by 
syndicates, the chief aim of which is to declare big divi- 
dends. Lectures and entertainments are furnished to 
make money. Music is dealt out like ribbons or muslin, 
at so much per yard. 

There is an imperative demand that society become or- 
ganized. It has too long been driven hither and thither, 
a constant temptation to the good and a destroying en- 
vironment to the bad. Too long have talent and genius 
been permitted to rust and indifference and ignorance to 
die in their own obscurity and darkness. 

During a division of property all theaters, opera-houses, 
music-halls, and other buildings used solely for entertain- 
ment purposes would become public property. In addi- 
tion, in every city a number of magnificent private resi- 
dences, with costly furniture and paintings, would also be 
added to the public possessions. These buildings could 
be made to fill a most valuable mission by becoming the 
nucleus of a systematic social organization. Under such 
a system they would become public theaters, opera-houses, 
music-halls, libraries, reading-rooms, gymnasiums, art gal- 



OUR NATION '8 NEED. 211 

leries, and schools of art, science, music, and other special 
branches. They would become a public institution. It 
might well be called the public culture system. 

Such a system could be organized and operated with 
the greatest facility. It would require that all large cities 
be divided into districts, similar to school or political dis- 
tricts, and that counties be divided so that each town would 
be the center of its surrounding territory. Trustees or 
local committees could be elected in the same manner as 
school trustees and town officials. County and state offi- 
cers could be elected or appointed the same as other state 
officials. A national board, composed of one member from 
each state, could have a general oversight of the entire 
country. 

When officers were duly elected it would become their 
duty to assume control of all property set apart for social 
purposes, the same as school trustees now control school 
buildings and grounds. It would also be their duty to co- 
operate with other boards, through county and state offi- 
cers, to secure to the people entertainments, amusements, 
and lectures, the services of special talent, and other social 
advantages such as the locality and people should demand. 

The operation of such a system would mean the employ- 
ment of all the best talent, of every description, in the na- 
tion. Every actor and actress, every artistic company of 
entertainers of respectable merit, every elocutionist, singer, 
or musician that should come up to a required standard 
would thus find steady employment. Lecturers upon every 
subject would be in demand, and those who could entertain, 
or amuse, or specially instruct would be in constant ser- 
vice. 

While such a system would be distinct from the common 
school, there are no reasons why the two could not, to some 
extent cooperate. There are many subjects which require 
special study and which the average teacher must entirely 
neglect. Under such a system, persons devoted to special 
branches of study could be employed to go from town to 
town teaching a single subject. 

In this way not only could the young be taught impor- 
tant branches now entirely neglected, but the people at 
large could gain from experts a great variety of knowl- 
edge which now is practically inaccessible to them. 



212 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

Lectures on various scientific subjects, business, politics, 
healtb, and social culture, and illustrated lectures upon 
various topics would be brought within the reach of almost 
every one. 

When such a system should cover our entire nation, as 
the school system does, it would mean that every section 
of large cities and every town would be supplied with 
buildings and equipments essential to the work involved. 
Every town would have its public hall, public library, 
gvmnasium, reading-rooms, and other buildings as the 
^ ^tem developed. 

As our school system is supported in part by the state 
and in part by local taxation, so could a system of public 
culture be aided partly by state appropriations, and this 
supplemented by local taxation, and by tuition and ad- 
mission fees from those who should make use of its bene- 
fits. 

The advantages of such a system would not be limited 
to securing the dissemination of amusements, recreation, 
and social culture over the entire country, but it would 
weed out the demoralizing, the vicious, and the vulgar. 
While private enterprises would not be prohibited, it would 
naturally follow that every meritorious company or enter- 
tainer would prefer the force of official approval and the 
salary that would be assured within the organized sys- 
tem. There are no reasons why every desirable entertainer 
now in the field could not be continued, and instead of 
promiscuous engagements, under vicarious auspices and 
large expenses, well-ordered circuits could be arranged and 
'^ an entire state covered systematically. Thousands of 
persons, representing every phase of talent and covering 
every branch of science, art, learning, and industry, could 
thus be kept employed, going from city to city and from 
town to town, entertaining and instructing the people. 

Under such a system local talent could be utilized to the 
fullest. Not only would every district have its public 
halls, libraries, reading-rooms, and other buildings, but it 
would be the duty of official boards to encourage musical, 
literary and other entertainments, debates, social gather- 
ings, games, out-of-door sports, excursions, and everything 
that would develop and strengthen the social character. 



OUR NATION* 8 NEED. 213 

Brass bands and musical associations, both instrumental 
and vocal, conld be organzied and become extremely help- 
ful to the social life. Public parks and playgrounds would 
become a part of all cities and towns. State and county 
exhibitions could be held annually in the interests of ag- 
riculture and commerce, with the idea of dividends to 
stockholders eliminated. 

Society could thus be made a factor incalculable for 
good. The social element is the cohesive force which 
binds men together. Friendship is a master passion. The 
millennium, when it visits earth, will be social in its chief 
features. The coming society will be scientific, educa- 
tional, democratic, cooperative, fraternal, and religious. It 
will not only acknowledge, but adopt the universal brother- 
hood of man, and bring together in active and reciprocal 
harmony the various diversities of gifts and abilities for 
mutual benefit. Society touches the most impressionable 
side of man^s nature, and it is the chief factor in uplifting 
or degrading mankind. Within the realms of society is 
more of pleasure and profit than can be found anywhere 
else. It is not the leaves or garb of civilization, as too 
many believe, but it is civilization itself. 

The practical value of an organized system of social 
culture cannot be too strongly pressed. Its benefits would 
be varied, far-reaching, and sure. As the objectionable 
and demoralizing would at once be condemned, the thea- 
ter, the opera, and the playhouse and public resort would 
not only become places of amusement, but of instruction 
as well. Under such a system one evening's entertain- 
ment each week would be easily placed within reach of 
40,000,000 people. It could embrace every form of enter- 
tainment and social instruction and be an actual normal 
education. If 100,000 persons, representing every form 
of talent and every branch of knowledge, were so employed, 
at an average annual salary of $4,000 each, it would cost 
only $10 per year to each of those securing benefits. Over 
$200,000,000 is spent annually in this country on the thea- 
ter. Much of this supports the wildest form of waste. 
Six star actors, it is claimed, were paid $1,600,000 for 
their services during six months. This is over $250,000 
for each, or more than $10,000 per week. It is acknowl- 



2U OUB NATION'S NEED. 

edged by competent judges that the American stage was 
never so depraved and vulgar as it is to-day, and this de- 
pravity is too often the winning card and the feature 
brandished most to gain success. If the above sum was 
systematically spent, what a revolution would ensue. It 
would support 80,000 actors and actresses at a salary of 
$5,000 each. Under the new order of things the stage 
would become a field for genuine talent and art and the 
theater a wholesome and ennobling part of our social life. 
Under such a system billiards and various other games 
now objectionable on account of their associations could 
be made both elevating and desirable. What nobler or 
more useful mission could the gorgeous grandeurs of mod- 
ern theaters and the magnificent palaces of the rich per- 
form than to become the basis of an organized system of 
public culture? Their stately walls and attractive sur- 
roundings would shed a new light; their magnificent in- 
teriors and costly furnishings would breathe a new life. 
They would add genuine glory to the nation's greatness. 

Such an innovation cannot be considered as a mere ex- 
periment. That such a system is needed is self-evident. 
That it would succeed and become not only a permanent, 
but a constantly increasing factor in our social and po- 
litical life cannot be questioned. The practical utility 
of such a system is already demonstrated upon every side. 
That 15,000,000 children attend our public schools five 
days each week ; that some 30,000,000 people attend church 
every Sunday; that over 5,000,000 men are voluntary 
members of fraternal organizations; that our country is 
now a vast social network embracing a legion of diversi- 
fied interests, is all evidence of the mutual and correlative 
nature of our social life. The success of the '^university ex- 
tension,'^ the Chautauqua system of education, and other 
similar movements show the practicability of systematic 
and organized effort in the intellectual and social field. 

As all railroads during the divide-up would become pub- 
lic property, traveling would naturally become a prominent 
medium of education and social development. Travel 
would be cheap and its benefits within reach of almost every 
one. A train of twelve or twenty cars, furnishing accom- 
modations for several hundred people, could be run at a 



OUR NATtOM'S NEED, %16 

comparatively small daily expense. Five hundred persons 
could travel for six weeks, have board and sleeping ac- 
commodations, and cover more than 10,000 miles, moving 
eight hours per day, at an expense not exceeding $60 each. 
As a train can be run for less than $50 per day, such an ex- 
cursion need not cost over $10 for each person for travel 
alone. To travel 10,000 miles now costs not far from $200. 

Excursions embracing, in a general way, the entire coun- 
try could be made in the interest of various professions 
and occupations, and not only could such travels be cheaply 
made, but they could be pleasant and profitable in the ex- 
treme. A national board of public culture could easily 
arrange special excursions for various occupations and in- 
terests, and in this way would be thrown together, for 
travel, investigation, and social intercourse, companies of 
teachers, ministers, doctors, lawyers, literary men, farmers, 
stock-raisers, fruit-growers, architects, mechanics, mer- 
chants, public officials, artists, musicians, and others rep- 
resenting special departments of thought and enterprise. 
Each excursion could be arranged so that points of greatest 
interest to those participating could be reached. The edu- 
cational value of such a measure is almost without limit. 
What could be more profitable and desirable to a fruit- 
grower, a stock-raiser, or a teacher than a six weeks' trip 
in company with hundreds of others similarly interested, 
visiting various parts of the country and investigating the 
best methods and products to be seen in each ? 

ISTot only could such excursions be arranged in the in- 
terests of various occupations, but in like manner students 
in our schools and colleges could supplement their studies 
by systematic travel. Indeed, an extended and wisely ar- 
ranged season of travel might well be added to the cur- 
riculum of all institutions of learning. V/ith certain ex- 
ceptions book learning is, at best, second-hand informa- 
tion. No education can be complete and no mind can be 
developed in the highest sense to which the experiences 
and benefits of travel have been denied. With such con- 
cessions as would follow the government ownership of rail- 
roads, six or eight weeks of travel, in connection with a 
college course, would not materially increase the general 
expense. The experience would not only relieve the mo- 



216 OVB ITATION'S NEED, 

notony of college life, but it would broaden the intellect 
and develop the faculties of thought. 

As a system of public culture developed tours could be 
arranged reaching to all parts of the globe. Excursions 
for students and others interested could be made around 
the earth at small cost. By companies of several hundred 
persons trains and steamers could be chartered and trips 
made around the world, including the chief points of in- 
terest in the circuit, at an expense of from $100 to $200 
each. The advantages of such a programme are beyond 
conception. N^ot only v/ould those participating receive 
a benefit, but the light of American civilization would be 
carried to other lands. It would be sowing good seed 
broadcast over the earth. It would be practical mission- 
ary work that would surely bring forth a rich harvest. It 
is entirely reasonable to believe that such travels, sys- 
tematicall}^ arranged, would receive an immense patronage 
and continue as a permanent feature of progress. 

Let no one belittle the suggestions here made. They are 
not theories. They are not fanciful visions. They are 
possibilities that we are trampling under our feet. Let us 
believe that God has a higher and broader mission for 
steam and electric power, for railroads and steamships, 
than they have yet filled. When these things are lib- 
erated from the thraldom of mammonism they will rapidly 
multiply in application and usefulness. 

Not only would a division of property give opportunity 
to organize society, but many social abuses could be abol- 
ished. Extremes of wealth and poverty have done more 
injury in the social realm than anywhere else. Nowhere 
else are people so stratified into classes. It is in the social 
field that men test the character of each other. In no 
other realm is the real inwardness of man's nature so 
transparent or so exposed to view. 

The new conditions would revolutionize the exercise of 
what are now termed charity, benevolence, and philan- 
thropy. As a benefactor of the race, modern philanthropy 
scarcely deserves the name. The injury it inflicts counter- 
acts much, if not all, of the good. 

In large donations over $80,000,000 are now annually 
given for benevolent purposes in our country. Such dona- 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 217 

tions are rapidly on the increase. Although much of it 
is prayerfully and thoughtfully given, the larger part of 
it actually benefits none. Says the eminent Dr. George 
F. Shrady regarding a very popular form of charity: "In 
I^ew York alone there are 116 dispensaries, each one of 
which is vying with the others in propagating the worst 
form of pauperism. . . . There would not be any 
danger of the really poor suffering if half the hospitals 
and two-thirds of the dispensaries were closed to-morrow. 
No millionaire anxious to fit the camel to the eye of the 
needle and quiet his conscience by lending to the Lord need 
worry because the dispensaries may suffer for want of 
necessary funds. As it is, the thrift of one class now min- 
isters to the improvidence of the other. The anodyne 
which quiets the conscience of the giver paralyzes the soul 
of the taker.^' 

Andrew Carnegie, himself a recognized philanthrophist, 
is quoted as being of the opinion that out of every $1,000 
given in charity $950 do harm. Philanthropy and charity, 
as a rule, perpetuate the very evils they are intended to 
cure. And they deserve such a fate. To give all we have 
to feed the poor may profit nothing. Indeed, it may do a 
great injury. To help the poor from one hand and deny 
them a chance to help themselves with the other, as too 
many rich people do, is not charity. Such almsgiving is 
bigotry crimson with crime. It tends to sap the force and 
fiber of manhood and make indolence and pauperism a 
perpetual doom. 

Philanthropists should take to heart the words of Tol- 
stoi, who says : "If I wish to help the poor I must not be 
the cause of their poverty.^^ Men cannot ride to wealth 
upon the backs of their fellow-men and make atonement 
by supporting soup-houses and mission Sunday-schools or 
building colleges and hospitals. 

Millions of dollars are annually given to churches, col- 
leges, and other public institutions by rich men, the re- 
sults of which are far from an unmixed blessing. The 
eff!ect too often seen is that the pulpit is muzzled and the 
college curriculum biased to gratify the political or reli- 
gious whims of their supporters. Young men have for 
years been a choice attraction for philanthropy, and not 



218 OUR NATION^ 8 NEED, 

only colleges, but libraries, gymnasiums, and other build- 
ings have been erected and endowed for their benefit. Yet 
nothing under the skies is so able to care for itself as a 
young man. What young men need is not alms, but op- 
portunity; not help, but responsibility; not endowments 
which palsy the energies, but a road, wide enough for all, 
leading to success; a field in which all can dig, a place in 
which all can be useful, a mission in the world for each 
one to fill. 



When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice; 
but when the wicked beareth rule the people mourn. — Solo- 
mon. 

Higher — as opening up a loftier line; 

Holier — as springing from a deeper root; 
For love to God may be pronounced divine 

When love to man becomes its genuine fruit. 

—Barton. 

If you do not wish for His kingdom, don't pray for it ; 
but if you do, you must do more than pray for it; you must 
work for it. — John Euskin. 

Yes; the world wants the best thing — your best — and she 
will smite you stealthily if you do not hand over your gift. — 
Feances E. Willard. 

The New Testament teems with passages inculcating peace, 
brotherly love, mutual forbearance, charity, disregard for 
filthy lucre, and devotedness to the welfare of our fellow- 
men. — John Bright. 

Oh! into what a blissful scene might this ruin of a world 
yet be transformed were covetousness thoroughly subdued, and 
were only those who profess to be Christians to come forth 
with unanimity and lay down their superfluous treasures at 
the foot of the cross. — Thomas Dick. 

If • shipwreck should ever befall your country, the rock upon 
which it will split will be your devotion to your private inter- 
ests at the expense of your duty to the state. — Kossuth. 

Remove but the single element of distrust, and who dpes 
not see that the great cause of human wretchedness would be 
taken away? — Mark Hopkins. 

Professions pass for nothing with the experienced when 
connected with a practice that flatly contradicts them. — Cooper. 



220 



OUR NATION ^8 NEED, 221 



CHAPTEE XV. 

A DIVIDE-UP AND CHRISTIAN" CITIZENSHIP. 

At the Presidential election in 1896 there were 13,923,- 
643 votes east. Each one of these represented an Ameri- 
can citizen. If the rate of increase that has marked the 
past continues, in 1900 there will be 16,000,000 voters in 
the nation. The laws and the liberties of the republic 
are vested in these men. 

The overwhelming majority of these citizens have hon- 
est hearts and sincerely desire those things which best pro- 
mote the welfare of all the people. Although represent- 
ing almost every shade of religious belief and every na- 
tionality, in politics we all meet upon a common level. 
We all bring, or should bring, to the realm of citizenship 
our patriotism and Christian character, and the general 
level of political and governmental actions depends upon 
the nature of our united influence as individual citizens. 

It is unavoidably true that in a country like ours man 
has two distinct sets of duties — those tvhich he owes to 
himself and his own and those which he owes to society 
and the state. 

While the home, the school, and the Church have been 
diligent in teaching individual and private duties, public 
duties have been constantly neglected. Our schoolmasters 
are permitted to know nothing of politics. Our strife and 
calumny, the bias and deception of political contentions 
form the school in which political sentiments are moulded 
and in which political convictions are crystallized. 

Contrary to the common impression, it is in our public 
duties rather than in our private duties that we are rec- 
reant. The evils resulting from neglect of public or po- 
litical duties are far-reaching and disastrous. When 
public duties are neglected or public actions are corrupt, 
injurious recoil is made upon every phase of life. N"ot 



322 OUB NATION ^8 NEED, 

only the nation, but the family and the individual suffer 
inflictions. It is the ruling force in the realm of state 
which brings prosperity or ruin upon a people. "When 
the righteous are in authority the people rejoice; but when 
the wicked beareth rule the people mourn.'^ Our public 
and private relations are interdependent. If we are faith- 
ful in both the performance of either is made easy. If we 
ignore either the faithful performance of the other be- 
comes impossible. 

No matter how perfect and wedded to ideals a govern- 
ment may be, when public duties are neglected public vir- 
tue begins at once to yield to public vice. The real and 
ideal immediately sever companionship and grow apart. 
The real gradually but surely becomes organic and deep- 
seated, while the ideal grows extraneous and remote. The 
real is soon established by all of that which is; the ideal 
must roam amid theories of that which ought to be. As 
time goes on the real, no matter how deplorable, passes be- 
yond correction; the ideal, no matter how intensely de- 
sirable, passes beyond reach. Finally the real becomes an 
established fact ; the ideal a visionary dream. 

Failure to perform our duties as citizens has not been 
willful, but has come through want of diligence. We have 
lacked courage rather than motive. We have desired and 
prayed for better things than we have been willing to work 
for. The popular heart has longed for a new era, but the 
yearning has not materialized into action. Protestant, 
Catholic, and Jew have stood around the national altars 
and desired to drop within the sacred urn a united peti- 
tion for better laws and happier homes, but they have not 
been bold enough to free themselves from the domination 
of wealth and the bossism of political machines. Thus it 
is that the miseries and oppressions which prevail are due 
chiefly to the derelictions of our best citizens. They have 
allowed themselves to be betrayed. They have been satis- 
fled simply to desire good laws when duty demanded that 
they make them and enforce obedience to them. In short, 
good people have been the passive and not the active ele- 
ment in politics. 

That the country has suffered on account of political sin 
is sure evidence that either corrupt or incapable men rule. 



OUR NATI0N^8 NEED. 223 

Genuine statesmanship has not had charge of the affairs of 
state. History establishes no fact more certainly than that 
when worthy and able men rule, prosperity, peace, and 
progress invariably follow. But for two decades, under 
the alternating administrations of the great political par- 
ties, our industrial and commercial interests have steadily 
become more and more unstable. Our political ofhcials 
have hindered rather than favored progress. They have 
been more interested in political jobbery than in the enact- 
ment of wholesome laws. During these years the corrup- 
tions of the ballot-box have constantly increased and the 
true interests of the people have been less and less re- 
garded. The very things that we have been endeavoring to 
remedy for twenty years have gradually grown worse. 
Crime has multiplied; labor has grown dependent; the 
consumption of liquor has increased ; the poor have become 
more fated and the rich have grown richer at a rate un- 
paralleled in the history of the world. 

These things have occurred because patriotism and 
Christian character have not dominated in the realms of 
citizenship. The lesson must be learned over again that 
men owe their noblest and strongest virtues to their coun- 
try. Christian principles and political rectitude are in- 
separable. Into these wedded relations God has incorpo- 
rated laws and truths to which not only the lives of men, 
but public policies and political actions must conform. To 
bear fruit in political affairs is a chief mission of religion. 
Said Washington after forty years of public life : "Of all 
the things which lead to political prosperity, religion and 
morality are indispensable supports." For many years re- 
ligion and science wrestled for the dominion of truth, only 
to awake, like Jacob and the angel, to find themselves 
friends and co-workers at the dawn of a new day. So it 
must be in the conflicts between Christian citizenship and 
politics — they must become a unit and a single and mutual 
force in the cause of right. 

For years discontent, due to poverty and oppression in 
a multitude of forms, has been appealing to existing po- 
litical parties and to legislative powers for needed help. 
With rare exceptions it has pleaded in vain. While po- 
litical bosses have fattened upon spoils and organized 



224 OUB NATION'S NEED. 

mammonism has pocketed its millions througli special priv- 
ileges bought with bribes, the people have waited patiently 
and long for justice that died in its early promise and for 
blessings not yet seen. 

While it is true that the Christian and moral element 
has, more than any other, neglected its political duties, it 
is also true that of all the victims of vicious laws and cor- 
rupt legislation, Christianity and morality have been the 
greatest. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap;" and this principle applies not only to men and 
moral conduct, but to beliefs, doctrines, religion, politics, 
and social customs. 

Christianity as men see it has been a coward. By al- 
lowing politicians to betray the interests of the people it 
has itself suffered an incalculable loss. By being dis- 
loyal to the people Christianity has lost its power over 
them. The Church as an influence among the masses of 
mankind has become almost impotent. A large part of 
our population do not even seriously consider the subject 
of religion. It is a truth, as startling as it is stupendous, 
that there are millions of men, representing the very 
cream of American manhood, who have so little regard for 
that which claims to be Christianity that they do not con- 
sider it worthy of a hearing. Not more than forty men in 
a hundred go to church at all, and not one-half of these 
are interested in its work. Eeaching the masses has be- 
come a lost art. It takes twenty Christians a whole year 
to secure a new recruit, and in most instances this new 
member is a child brought up under Christian influences, 
and it is much oftener a passive girl than an active boy. 
It was claimed that there were 3,000 churches of one de- 
nomination that failed to secure a single convert during 
an entire year. Several of the leading denominations are 
almost at a standstill. Yet the Church was never more 
active or earnest or the pulpit more able. But its influ- 
ence upon the world outside of its traditional followers is 
deplorably weak. 

There is a reason for this lack of vital force in the 
Church. When the same conditions are so uniform, wide- 
spread, and conspicuous, the cause should certainly be of 
a nature to be seen and recognized. While there are many 



OUR NATION^ 8 N-EED. 225 

influences which operate and cooperate against the Church 
— and the inherent rebellion in man^s nature is not to be 
overlooked — there is one overshadowing cause of this 
estrangement on the part of mankind from the Church and 
religious influences. The chief cause is found in politics 
— Christianity has neglected its political duties. Instead 
of standing immovable against wrong and corruption, it 
weakly compromises its principles and cowers before the 
powers of mammonism. 

Paul said : "If any provideth not for his own * * * 
he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." A 
means of livelihood is a means of grace. More than this, 
it is an essential factor in the domination of faith. Chris- 
tianity has neglected the material welfare, and as a result 
faith is denied mankind. Poverty, want, wage-earning, 
and lack of natural opportunities have placed a gulf between 
the masses and the power to believe. Faith is denied them. 
The salt of the earth has lost its savor, the light has van- 
ished into darkn'^ss, and the witnessing power of Chris- 
tianity stands as though it were dumb before the world. 

To the sincere student of men and their material and 
spiritual relations no truth can be more apparent. There 
are millions of men in our nation, it is logical to believe, 
who are victims of this outrageous wrong. 

Without faith we are nothing. And none knew this 
better than the Apostle Paul. IJpon the subject of faith 
he was the world^s greatest authority. What Wilberforce 
was to liberty, Blackstone to law, or Webster to the Consti- 
tution, Paul was to the nature and power of faith. And 
he taught the fact that to be robbed of the necessaries 
of life was to be deprived of the ability to believe. He 
never plead more earnestly than when presenting the claims 
of the poor, and of none did he boast so publicly as of those 
who were bountiful toward the needy. 

Nearly 1,000,000 sons go out as young men into the 
world every year from the firesides of our nation. Only 
a few of these are provided for in the true sense. Most 
of them start with nothing. Their opportunities are 
meager and too often a myth. Many of them see nothing 
ahead but vicissitude and struggle. As they mingle with 
the world they meet thousands of men whose brightest 



^26 Oun NATION '8 NEED. 

possibilities have been blighted. Men who have grown 
prematurely old in the struggle for bread are seen npon 
every side. The young men are forced to join the ever- 
increasing army of wage-earners^ the majority of whom 
are unwilling and discontented slaves to corporate greed 
and subject to the whims and caprice of arbitrary and dog- 
matic authority. They soon realize that they are a subor- 
dinate part of creation. They associate with men whose 
moral and spiritual natures have been corrupted by vicious 
habits, whose intellects have been dwarfed by slavish servi- 
tude and privation, and whose natural and manly ambi- 
tions are crushed and dead. 

Moreover, it is the inherent desire of every healthy, sen- 
sible young man to get married and settle down. Next to 
religion this is the noblest, as it is the most precious, im- 
pulse of the soul. It is the one pure attribute that sur- 
vived, spotless and holy, the sin of Eden. If these 
natural and God-ordained hopes of becoming a husband 
and father and the loved and honored head of a home and 
fireside must, on account of poverty and the denial of in- 
herent rights to the abundant resources of God's foot-stool, 
be crushed within the bosom^ as thousands of young men 
are forced to crush them, the sweetest and highest in man 
is blighted and broken beyond repair. 

Millions of men in the midst of these things see wealth 
living in luxury, and Christianity, infatuated by its sump- 
tuous array, courting its smile and support, while toward 
the struggling poor it is exclusive and indifferent. These 
conditions prevail almost everywhere, and the results are 
inevitable. When man is forsaken by man he soon feels 
forsaken by God, and when Christianity ceases to be alive, 
active, and earnest in its devotions to humanity, disbelief 
spreads broadcast like a pestilence. Thus betrayed, the 
spirit in man is crushed and he turns his back upon the 
Church. Eeligion becomes to him a jargon of mockeries, 
the Bible a myth, and Christianity a delusion and a sham. 

It is often asserted that men have as good chances now 
as they ever had. This is not true. In the first place, 
legitimate needs and actual necessities have greatly mul- 
tiplied. And these needs are rapidly and inevitably in- 
creasing. The legion of new inventions and comforts that 



OTTR NATION'S NEED. ^^7 

modern genius has produced and is now inventing are a 
natural result of progressive civilization. They fill a real 
want and come to stay. It would be as possible to return 
to ox-carts and homespun as to abandon modern comforts 
and customs. These things were not brought to light to 
be hated and spurned, but to be used and enjoyed. And 
they were not intended for the few, but for everybody. 

Children are more costly than formerly. They require 
better clothes, better food, and better training. A much 
higher grade of education is imperative. Social and re- 
ligious advantages are more expensive. Homes cost more 
than they did. It requires more knowledge, more influ- 
ence, and more capital to enter business. In a multitude 
of ways the pathway to success of the modern young man 
is hedged about with difficulties. And an insurmountable 
obstacle is that many lines of industry are absorbed by the 
monopolies, trusts, and syndicates, a part of whose busi- 
ness it is to crush every new recruit that shows his head in 
conflict with their interests. It is also true that the prizes 
called success have grown too great in size and too few in 
number, making it impossible for more than one man in 
a great number to reach the goal. 

It was the intended mission of Christian citizenship to 
prevent or overcome all of these things. It is its bounden 
duty to correct them. Every man, in his inherent nature, 
demands a visible chance in the world. It should not be 
a fake, or a false hope, or a race in which a legion must 
enter and only a few win. It is essential for his own best 
interests that man see a pathway to the realization of his 
highest possibilities ; that he not only be active, but useful ; 
that the possession of a home be possible ; that his family 
be a comfort rather than a burden; that his fireside be a 
place of plenty and possible contentment, and not a con- 
stant prey for the wolf of want; that social, educational, 
and religious advantages all be within reach ; and that old 
age bring no thought of dependence or neglect. Until, 
to a reasonable degree, all of these things are possible to 
every one of the great army of toilers, whether they be on 
the farm or in the store, the office, the studio, the mine, or 
the factory. Christian citizenship cannot claim that it has 
done its duty in the realm of politics, nor can it expect 



228 OTIR NATION'S NEED. 

that the masses will listen to the Gospel it professes to 
believe and is wont to preach. 

A recreant and cowardly Christianity has not only denied 
the masses the power to believe, but it has dethroned faith 
generally. Men have lost confidence in religion, in poli- 
tics, in business, in each other, and in themselves. The in- 
jury thus wrought has been incalculable. "Public faith 
is the philosophy of politics and the religion of govern- 
ments/' "A lack of public faith," said the eminent Fisher 
Ames, "would not merely demoralize mankind; it tends to 
break all the ligaments of society, to dissolve that mysteri- 
ous charm which attracts individuals to the nation, and to 
inspire, in its stead, a repulsive sense of shame and dis- 
gust.'^ Confidence is a higher faculty than reason, and 
when it is lost man is only half alive. We are strong or 
weak, courageous or timid, a success or a failure, accord- 
ing to the amount of our faith. Faith is not a vain ex- 
pectancy, but the substance of things hoped for. Busi- 
ness is regulated by it. Panics and bankruptcies are 
chiefly a collapse of confidence. Commercial and finan- 
cial apostasy — public disbelief — ^has for years prevailed in 
our country like a pestilence. It has swept over the land, 
and in the midst of plentiful harvests and material abun-~ 
dance it has .blighted homes, and broken hearts, and forced 
poverty and disaster upon the people to an extent only 
surpassed by the carnage of war. What the country needs 
most is not more resources and industries, more sunshine 
and rain, or greater enterprise and wealth, but more faith 
— faith in God, faith in man, faith in life and in the power 
of effort ; a faith that rests upon a rock, a foundation upon 
which all men can stand upright and invincible, and, en- 
couraged by all that assurance can inspire, realize that 
their highest success is unhindered and that their best 
efforts are sure of reward. 

By neglecting its political and public duties Christianity 
has also brought reproach upon itself. Disbelief and dis- 
respect have entered its sanctuaries and polluted its altars. 
For a full decade the Church has been a chief target for 
ridicule and reproach. This has not come from dema- 
gogues and infidels, but it has been the voice of a quick- 
ened conscience arousing into action a cowardly and apos- 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 229 

tate Church. In the press and from the platform anath- 
emas, fired by holy zeal, are hurled at its very vitals. 
Christianity in its worship is beautiful, and in its devotion 
to ceremony it is almost faultless. But in politics it is a 
turncoat and a renegade. Men who are immaculate on 
Sunday are, from all appearances, emissaries of perdition 
in a political campaign. In church they are at their best 
and parade in pious decorum ; in politics they are at their 
worst and wallow in filth. In the realm of politics, to the 
average observer, there is not much difference between the 
good and the bad, saints and sinners, the sheep and the 
goats. Piety and rottenness bribe with each other's boodle, 
vote the same ticket, and gloat over the same victories. 

In the Church religion grows beautiful flowers, but from 
the ballot-box the world learns of its fruits. In the higher 
councils of the Church heated conflicts over politics have 
for years been waged, yet few real victories have been won. 
It has been strong in resolves, but treacherous in action. 
It has wasted its day of political grace, only to find itself 
weakened and blinded by the darkness of a dead faith. 
Evangelists and pastors find it necessary to spend their en- 
ergies on the professedly saved. Eeligious books and 
periodicals make it their mission to prevent the saved from 
getting lost rather than to teach the lost how to be saved. 
Indeed, the general trend of religious effort is to abandon 
the world and its wickedness and revive and arouse into 
action the dormant and moribund spirituality which 
gathers about its altars for worship. Well has Dr. Strong 
said : "If the Church refuses to save society she will fail 
to save herself, because she will fail to adapt herself to 
changed conditions. During the Christian era she has 
already made several important readjustments, and if she 
is to continue to live she must make another." 

As the influence of Christian citizenship begins with 
the individual, so in its results it ends where it begins — 
vdth the man himself. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that 
also shall he reap." Christianity has passively sown po- 
litical corruption and it has borne its natural fruits. It 
has not only denied the people faith, but it is robbing itself 
of the power to practice the Golden Rule. By being a 
stumbling-block to others men have hedged their own 



230 OUn NATION^ 8 NEED. 

pathway. He who has not observed that the ability to 
practice the Golden Enle in the best sense has been grad- 
ually undermined and placed beyond reach of the average 
individual, has not kept his eyes open. Legions of men 
dependent upon wages feel obliged to sacrifice moral prin- 
ciple in order to supply their families with bread. Busi- 
ness men find that there is a Baal to whom they must bow, 
or suffer the fires of opposition and ultimate defeat. The 
realm of industry has become depraved and the channels of 
enterprise corrupt and crooked. The individual has be- 
come a slave to the powers that be. The useful and 
humane features of business have been largely swallowed up 
in the idea of money-making. The various branches of 
business, under the reign of trusts and syndicates, are like 
so many financial empires ruled by despots. Their scepter 
of power is absolute and their kindness or tyranny is a 
matter of whim. 

The laws of cause and effect are inexorable, and they 
apply not only to life and nature, but to the actions and 
character of men. Nothing is more certain than that, 
with the average man, rectitude of life requires proper and 
contributing surroundings. Said Henry Drummond, one 
of the deepest thinkers of our time : "The development of 
any organism in any direction is dependent upon its en- 
vironments. A living cell cut off from air will die. A 
seed-germ apart from moisture and appropriate tempera- 
ture will make the ground its grave for centuries. Human 
nature, likewise, is subject to similar conditions. It can 
only develop in presence of its proper environment. No 
matter what its possibilities may be, no matter what seeds 
of thought or virtue, what germs of genius c art lie latent 
in the breast, until that appropriate environment presents 
itself the correspondence is denied, the development is dis- 
couraged, the most splendid possibilities of life remain un- 
realized, and thought and virtue, genius and art are dead." 

And what is true of the natural and spiritual world is 
equally true of the realms of politics and business. When 
political actions become corrupt, few are the men who can 
withstand the debasing influence in which they are obliged 
to move. When the channels of business are polluted by 
unscrupulous or inordinate greed, men by the legion feel 



OUR NATION^ 8 NEED. 231 

forced to resort to methods which their consciences con- 
demn and which they inwardly despise. Not only are 
Avage-earners and the poor made slaves, but merchants, 
manufacturers, professional men, and even capitalists are 
finding that liberty and free-will have taken flight, and 
that they live in an environment infamous in nature and 
arbitrary in power. While we are boasting of our liber- 
ties and material progress, we are threatened with a po- 
litical and industrial tyranny as despotic as that which 
cursed Eome under the iron heel of the Caesars. 

Christianity is at an extremity. A crisis confronts the 
courage and conscience of men. An imperative duty, long 
neglected, faces the individual citizen. It is not reason- 
able to expect Christianity to spread or the Church to 
attract the masses or its members to live lives of rectitude 
until private and public life — character and politics — are 
brought into harmony. It is a travesty upon religion to 
preach the Gospel to men when its followers, covetous and 
selfish, have placed a chasm between their fellows and the 
faith they enjoy, or to pray, "Thy kingdom come" when 
those who profess to be in the kingdom have lent their in- 
fluence to deny those outside the common comforts of life. 

These are painful charges to thrust in the face of Chris- 
tianity. But they are more than true. He who will go 
out into the world and mingle with men and candidly and 
carefully study the conditions which prevail will witness 
these perversions as plainly as though they were told in 
blazing letters across the dome of the sky. 

But the present is an occasion of great opportunity. 
ISTever did such an inviting conquest face the powers of citi- 
zenship. A new epoch is to mark the near future. The 
character of this epoch is vested in the people. The way 
is clear. The duty is plain. It consists in crystallizing 
the Golden Eule and the teachings of Christ into political 
action. 

The Bible is intensely devoted to political questions. In 
no other source are the duties of good citizenship so 
vividly and faithfully portrayed. The prophets of the Old 
Testament were all politicians in the best sense. Its pages 
teem with political policies, commands, and warnings. The 
entire Bible insists upon loyalty to country, and upon the 



23^ OVB NATION ^S NEED. 

subjects of land and usury, riches and poverty, legislators 
and laws, employers and employees, slavery and liberty it 
is comprehensive and explicit. 

In the treatment of political subjects the Bible almost 
invariably centers upon the extremes of wealth and pov- 
erty. Avarice has been the contending foe from the be- 
ginning. Over no condition of life do so many warnings 
hang as over riches. With one bold sweep it declares that 
"the love of money is the root of all evil.'' If the love is 
the root, that love gratified must be the tree upon which 
all evil fruits grow. To become wedded to riches is as 
much forbidden as was the fruit of the fatal tree in Eden. 
The rich are admonished to "break off sins by showing 
mercy to the poor." "For ye have eaten up the vineyard ; 
the spoil of the poor is in your houses.'' "What mean ye 
that ye beat my people to pieces and grind the face of the 
poor ?" "He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, 
and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want." 
"Eob not the poor because they are poor ... for the 
Lord will plead their cause and spoil the soul of them that 
spoiled them." "Go to, now, ye rich men ; weep and howl 
for your miseries that shall come upon you." "Behold^ 
the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, 
which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries 
of them which have reaped have entered into the ears of 
the Lord." The Bible as a whole treats of earthly rather 
than of heavenly things. It has more to say about ma- 
terial than spiritual affairs. Its commands and warnings 
are closely associated with the human side of life. Its 
' basic teachings are equality and justice among men. 

The love that clings to self and ignores others regard- 
ing temporal matters cannot be classified as a Christian 
virtue. Says the beloved Apostle; "But whoso hath this 
world's good, and seeth his brother hath need, and shutteth 
up his bowels of compassion from, him, how dwelleth the 
love of God in him." 

The life and teachings of Jesus while upon earth were 
largely devoted to financial and political duties. Eiches 
were considered by Him a treacherous possession. His 
sermons. His parables, and His ministrations directly bear 
upon temporal affairs. One of His cardinal declarations 



OUR IfTATION'S NEED. 233 

was : "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." To the rich 
yonng man He said : "Lackest thou one thing ; sell all that 
thon hast and distribute nnto the poor/' Under the influ- 
ence of His teachings Zaccheus gave one-half of his goods 
at once to the poor and restored fourfold all his ill-gotten 
gains. Warning against riches is a central teaching of the 
Sermon on the Mount. The Lord's Prayer is devoted to 
the subject of bread, debts, humanity, and earthly things 
entirely. To pray for an ideal earthly kingdom, for good 
laws, just conditions, prosperity, and peace, implies that we 
shall vote, and work, and live for these things as much as 
we do for bread and shelter. The parable of the rich man 
and Lazarus gives divine authority to the thought that if 
the rich fare sumptuously while poverty and suffering are 
neglected, they deserve not only temporal death, but the 
eternal fate of the damned. The only glimpse of the judg- 
ment revealed to us is the parable of the sheep and the 
goats. With the sheep upon the right side and the goats 
upon the left, and amidst a vision of the earth's poor, and 
hungry, and thirsty, and sick, and outcast, and oppressed, 
He said to those upon the right side, "Verily I say unto 
you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me ;" and to those 
upon the left He said : "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one 
of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall 
go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous 
into life eternal.'' 

Christ's mission was to save the world, to redeem the 
earth, to elevate mankind spiritually and temporally, and 
to bring peace, good-will, and prosperity to the people. 
His salvation is intended to rescue not only the souls, but 
the bodies of men ; not only individuals, but nations. He 
came that the Gospel be preached to the poor; that pov- 
erty, want, oppression, and degradation be abolished. Com- 
mon necessities and the good things of life are furnishings 
of His earthly kingdom. He came to overcome sin and to 
destroy its ravages; not to save men in their sins or in 
their poverty, but out of both. To eradicate poverty and 
misery, injustice and ignorance, is a part of the atone- 
ment. 

The principle and the practice of the general distribu" 



234 OUE JSTA TION '8 NEED. 

tion of wealth as it prevailed in Canaan for centuries are 
in full accord with the entire teachings of both the Old 
and ]N"ew Testaments. It was a required practice in the 
dominion of law ; it is an imperative principle in the gospel 
of love. If it is a desirable measure in our country to-day, 
its execution should meet the approval of every patriotic 
Christian citizen. "Charge them that are rich in this 
world . . . that they be rich in good works, ready to 
distribute," is as binding as the Decalogue or the Apostle's 
Creed. "Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he 
is exalted; but the rich in that he is made low," are ap- 
peals to the grandest and noblest in man. How could it 
be possible, except through a just and equitable distribu- 
tion of property, to elevate the poor and destroy the glory 
and power of riches and fulfill the saying : "He hath put 
down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low 
degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and 
the rich he hath sent empty away"? 

American citizenship holds within its grasp the desti- 
nies of the future. A new era, to be the grandest the 
world has seen, is before us. It will be the triumph of man 
over nature, of right over v,^rong, of peace over war, of joy 
over sorrow. In its contemplation mankind is confronted 
by new duties. Simply to cleplore poverty and wrong and 
pray for humanity will no longer avail. Faith, and hope, 
and love no longer respond to hollow mockeries. Equal- 
ity is the new signet in the divine seal of human govern- 
ment. 

To make a just and universal distribution of property 
is the only way in which the higher elements of character 
can be called forth. In no other v/ay can Christian broth- 
erhood show t^at it loves its neighbor as itself. It is the 
only thing that will humanize the hearts of the rich or 
dispel the apathy and abolish the slavery of the poor. 
Nothing else will so harmonize into action the diversities 
of gifts and talents of the race. It is the only measure 
that will satisfy the Golden Eule. l^othing else will so 
renew the faith of the people and reestablish the influence 
of Christianity in the land. 

Christian citizenship, if it means anything, implies that 
Christian principles should be the motive force in political 
afiairs. It is not a new religion or a new theology that WQ 



OUB NATION'S NEED. 235 

need, but a practical and opportune application of the reli- 
gion we have. The signs of the times are prophetic of 
momentous advances in the social and political world. To 
keep in harmony with modern progress politics must re- 
new its life. Evidently, God is demanding that not sim- 
ply individuals, but that our nation and society as a whole 
must he saved. 

That religion possesses essentials which relate solely to 
individual experience is entirely true. In a vital sense 
every one must work out his own salvation and, independ- 
ent of all else, preserve with loyal fidelity his own atti- 
tude toward his Maker. Some may have no duties beyond 
this personal exercise of hope and faith. But such a reli- 
gion belongs to the circumscribed and obscure — its scope 
is limited, its influence passive. Such a religion is not the 
kind required of strong men, rich in influence and talents 
and intrusted with the duties of citizenship. 

The Christian pictured by Bunyan left his home, his 
family, his country, and his all, and, single-handed and 
alone, sought the Celestial City. But religion has out- 
grown these narrow conceptions. The modern Christian 
has a more comprehensive mission than this. His re- 
sponsibility goes beyond self. It includes society and the 
state. To a remarkable degree man has become his broth- 
er's keeper. This was always a principle ; it is now a law. 
To be a citizen is to be more than an individual. The ex- 
perience sufficient to inspire childhood and comfort weak- 
ness and age will not suffice for him who holds the political 
destiny of the nation within his grasp. The religion that 
redeems a subject will not save a citizen. Modern prog- 
ress has united interests and combined forces. Men are 
no longer isolated units, but vital parts of a complete 
whole. Christianity is submerged in politics, and the in- 
dividual Christian is as leaven in the political and social 
lump. Only by lifting others can he lift himself. Only 
by being the salt of the earth can he himself be saved. 
Only by being the light of the world can he illuminate his 
own pathway. God is demanding that citizenship in the 
realm of politics shall become a channel of human redemp- 
tion. The present age gives to Christianity a new mis- 
sion. Its new duty rennirps thpt not only individuals, but 
society and the, nation shall be saved and blessed.: _ 



Look not every man on his own things, but every man also 
on the things of others. — Paul. 

New times demand new measures and new menj 
The world advances, and in time outgrows 
The laws that in our fathers' day were best; 
And doubtless, after us, some purer scheme 
Will be shaped out by wiser men than we. 

— Lowell. 

The highest and noblest endeavor of the leaders of thought 
is to-day bent on seeking the way for a closer brotherhood, a 
mors perceptible blending between those whom social condi- 
tions and injustice have too long kept asunder: and a grander 
quest than this was never undertaken by belted knight. — H. 
W. Cadman. 

When the heart has become hot with the God-enkindled fire 
of love, it refuses to regard any class, however ignorant and 
degraded, as human rubbish. It looks down on no being for 
whom Christ thought it worth while to die. The essential 
dignity of human nature belittles the artificial distinctions of 
social rank. Caste can no more survive the awakening of the 
spirit of uiversal brotherhood than a night can outlive the 
sunshine. — ^Josiah Strong. 

They who seek to lift the works and institutions of men 
with visions of larger truth and assertions of wider justice are 
not destroyers, but builders; they make ready the way of the 
Lord into new redemptions of human life. — George D. Her- 
eon. 

Lift up your eyes and you may see another stadium of his- 
tory advancing. Its aim will be to realize the Christianity of 
Christ Himself, which is about to renew its youth by taking 
to heart the Sermon on the Mount. He that sitteth on the 
throne is saying: "Behold, I make all things new." This 
earth is yet to be redeemed, soul and body, with all its 
peoples, occupations, and interests. — Roswell D. Hitchcock. 



^36 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 237 



CHAPTEE XYI. 

IS IT OUR DUTY TO DIVIDE UPf 

This is America. Ours is a government of the people, 
for the people, and by the people. Every citizen has a 
rigfht to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

Our country is rich. Its natural resources are bound- 
less. It could support one-half of the human race and 
have an abundance to spare. Our land is fertile and fur- 
nishes a large share of the food supply of civilization. Our 
climate is healthful, invigorating, and promotive of 
strength and energy. Our mines are rich in treasure. 
Gold and silver, iron and coal, oil and other minerals are 
stored up for the ages. We have granite and lumber suffi- 
cient to render exhaustion almost impossible. Our river 
courses and harbors are unsurpassed. Our manufacturing 
interests are in tiie front rank, and in progressive enter- 
prise and inventive genius we lead the world. 

America was intended to succeed. Before the foot of 
civilized man ever pressed her shores the elements of suc- 
cess swelled her bosom and filled her forests. Prosperity 
and plenty echo from her thousand hills, and peace and 
good-will here find their wonted clime. 

No serious famine or long-continued pestilence has ever 
marred her history. No matter how desperately foreign 
foes have beaten upon our shores or how lavishly human 
blood has been poured out upon her soil to uphold her 
honor or preserve her name, through it all faith in her 
natural resources has remained unshaken. No matter how 
often the people have been made to suffer through their 
OA\Ti transgressions or on account of man^s inhumanity to 
man, they have never turned their faces toward heaven 
and uttered an unanswered prayer for bread. Her store- 
houses have crarrered abundant harvests, her markets have 
let no real want remain unsupplied. As the magnificent 



238 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

ruins buried beneath the surface of ancient and historic 
soil proclaim a great past, so do the rich and exhaustless 
treasures stored up in the bosom of our continent proclaim 
a great future. As an inspiration to material progress 
and to civilizing forces America has no parallel. Well has 
Emerson said: "America is another name for oppor- 
tunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of 
Divine Providence in behalf of the human race.'' 

Under such favorable conditions the people not only have 
the right, but it is their duty to succeed. It is their duty 
to perpetuate, with sacred fidelity, every advantage and 
every blessing which unlimited opportunities and the best 
laws can insure. 

It is the direct mission of the American people to see 
that injustice, oppression, enforced poverty, or unnatural 
riches find no resting-place here. Liberty has been bought 
and slavery has been banished at a great price, and the 
victories are worth the cost only when the benefits they be- 
stow are placed within the equal reach of all. Whenever 
the just privileges of any one are cut off or the God- 
intended opportunities of any one are denied, there still 
exists an occasion for a patriotic and emphatic protest. 

There is no genuine statesmanship excepting that which 
is enlisted in the interest of all the people. There is no 
patriotism that does not reverently stand ready to offer 
itself in behalf of a righteous and just cause. When pov- 
erty, debt, riches, oppression, crushing competition, indus- 
trial bondage, and the injustice and viciousness which 
they inevitably induce prevail in the land, and in the face 
of it all political corruption and unbridled greed flourish 
and intrench themselves, it becomes the imperative duty 
of the people to arise and demand that conditions be 
changed and the cause which produced them be removed, 
no matter by whom such action is opposed or against 
whose individual interests it may operate. 

If it be true that these evils are due to the fact that the 
wealth of the nation has drifted from the possession of the 
many into the hands of the few; that this unnatural flow 
of wealth and property has been going on for years and 
steadily grows more and more rapid; that already 1,000,- 
000 men own nearly the whole of the nation's wealth, and 



OUR I{ATION'S NEED. 239 

at least 50,000,000 people have only a mere pittance, the 
highest sense of honor demands that a remedy be applied. 

If it be true that the concentration of wealth into the 
hands of a few and the widespread prevalence of poverty 
and debt is the chief cause of the various evils which so 
burden and affhct our country, it is a conclusive proof 
that these conditions are a national calamity. Through 
the decline in values, the idleness of men, the depres- 
sion in business, and the embarrassments of poverty dur- 
ing the past ten years a vast army of our people have 
suffered a loss the extent of which, from a financial 
standpoint, is scarcely surpassed by the Civil War. 

So long as present conditions exist prosperity alone can- 
not bring permanent relief to the people. During recent 
campaigns prosperity or the lack of it has been given great 
prominence in political discussions. Its succeeding waves 
have been made the rallying-cry of party leaders and mul- 
titudes of voters have used it as their guiding star. Pros- 
perity in spasms leaves the people worse off than it finds 
them. Succeeding eras of prosperity are, to no small 
extent, the cause of the present extremes of wealth and 
poverty. Out of prosperous times evolve the magnate and 
millionaire. Out of the interims of depression have come 
financial wrecks and the widespread reign of wage-earn- 
ing. It takes both "bulls'^ and "bears^^ to make a Wall 
Street. Not only are prices forced up and down, but 
prosperity and panics are brought to pass by designing 
men. Nothing so favors financial extremes as flood and 
ebb tides of commerce and industry. The essential high 
art of modern financiering consists in taking advantage 
of prosperity and panics at the expense of those not so 
keen and far-sighted. 

Extremes of wealth and poverty are a condition that 
is both a cause and effect. It may be the outgrowth of 
even good laws and natural causes, but the results to 
which it leads are all unnatural and vicious. It is not 
.50 much the result of had laivs as it is the cause of them. 
It is the source of political corruption and unjust op- 
pression rather than the result of these things. When 
a few have all and the many have nothing, all that is 
accursed becomes incarnate. It is a condition which de- 



240 OUR NATION'S MEED. 

fies correction itself and prevents normal activity in 
everything within the range of its influence. 

It wonld be impossible to outlaw the forces which have 
created existing extremes of wealth and poverty. Both 
extremes are reached by a thousand paths. Honesty and 
fraud, energy and intrigue, acquirement and inheritance, 
genius and greed — things good and bad — produce both 
wealth and poverty. These operations of mind, ambition, 
chance, and human nature are entirely beyond the power 
of legal control. And it is well they are; because if all 
enterprise and human relations could be operated and 
controlled like one vast machine, it would be coercion, not 
liberty. Every man would wear a strait- jacket and good- 
ness would become a law instead of a virtue, which is 
impossible. 

So long as concentrated wealth is permitted to dominate, 
genuine reforms, either industrial, financial, political, or 
moral, are prevented. For two decades it has forestalled 
almost every effort in the direction of genuine progress. 
Politics has become the playground of wealth, and poli- 
ticians, from the President down, are little else than its 
puppets. So long as this condition exists, the great octo- 
pus which strangles law and liberty will hold supremacy, 
no matter how diligently we may apply remedies in other 
directions. Should a divide-up be made, it would even 
then be difficult to enact laws and establish customs that 
would maintain desirable conditions in matters of wealth 
and poverty. To endeavor to grope our way back to that 
which is desirable through a wilderness of theories, ideal 
though they may be, is not only impracticable, but utterly 
impossible. 

To equalize wealth among the 'people is the first 
thing to do. If this were done other reforms would 
be easy. It would break the ground for and bring within 
reach many measures and issues now both impracticable 
and impossible. The interests of the people would become 
mutual, and movements which now arouse intense an- 
tagonisms and are sure of defeat would then be favored, 
with popular approval. The public ownership of rail- 
roads, telegraphs, and mines and the destruction of the 
liquor traffic would be easily accomplished, Our whole 



OXIR NATION' 8 NEED. 241 

monetary system could be reformed without opposition. 
If the Government should own the gold and silver mines, 
our national credit would be at once established through- 
out the world. The initiative and referendum would J3e- 
come a natural and welcome sequence of the new order of 
things. 

The rich can enter no just plea against a divide-up and 
start-even. They have proven themselves entirely inca- 
pable of managing, to the best advantage, the wealth that 
they now legally claim. They have turned wealth into a 
curse rather than a blessing. It is the mission of wealth 
to be useful and active ; to keep mind, muscle, and handi- 
craft busy; to establish homes and promote education and 
morality ; to render suffering unnecessary and actual want 
impossible. It is the duty of wealth to prevent hard times 
and poverty and to insure prosperity and plenty. It is 
its duty to lift all and oppress none. In a country like 
ours wealth should give to every one an opportunity and 
allow no one to wholly fail. 

But in the hands of those who hold it wealth has ut- 
terly failed to do these things. The millionaire, as a 
rule, is a complete and disastrous failure. His talent of 
money-making is a peril ; his charity a curse to his fellows. 
Wealth when concentrated in the hands of a few ceases to 
possess either conscience or sympathy, except in rare in- 
stances. It will invite panics and plan general destruc- 
tion; it will devour its neighbors and starve their chil- 
dren; it will buy political power and social honor in the 
open markets, and corrupt legislation and disregard laws 
as though such things were only intended for swine. 

Wealth will conspire against all else for its ot\tl profit; 
it will crush its rivals and deceive its friends; and if al- 
lowed full sway it will rule the earth with all the cruelty 
that heartless tyranny can conceive. Wealth in the hands 
of the few has ever been and will continue to be humanity's 
constant and relentless foe. Distributed equitably among 
all the people, it becomes their loyal friend and a chief 
factor of Christian civilization. Concentrated wealth 
and widespread poverty are antagonistic and cannot be 
reconciled. The condition is unjust, unnatural, un- 
christian, and un-American. 



242 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

An important lesson to be learned is that riches and 
poverty are mnch alike in that they are both abnormal. 
They are conditions to be equally deplored. That both 
conditions, in a most pronounced form, are rapidly on 
the increase is, perhaps, onr greatest national peril. While 
concentrated wealth and diffused poverty represent ex- 
tremes and stratify our social life, yet they are correla- 
tive and vitally connected. Only through the influence 
of the other does either exist. Only by a study of both 
can either be fully understood. Only by assailing both 
can either be subdued. 

The best sociologists tell us that poverty is a disease. 
Few truths have been more boldly or more conclusively 
proven. In one of her most noted public addresses Frances 
Willard said: "Poverty is a disease; it is degradation; 
it has no right to be; and when men and women wake 
out of sleep and see themselves as the criminals they are, 
nothing in the world will be so sure of an actual extermi- 
nation as the cursed thing called poverty — the cradle of 
crime, the father of filtli, the mother of misery. In the 
past we have comforted ourselves with looking upon it as 
the effect of wrong-doing, but have now aroused our- 
selves to the study of it as a cause. We ^re determined 
to burn out, to its last infectious atom, the stench of the 
slums and the supreme temptations to a bad life with 
which poverty haunts the dreams of babyhood, handicaps 
the purposes of youth, enthralls the life of manhood.^' 

But, like poverty, riches is also a disease. Its threat- 
enings are as dire and its results are as deadly. Its 
symptoms are pathognomonic and arise from no other 
condition or cause. The miser is as much a victim of 
riches as the pauper is of poverty. The millionaire madly 
grasping for more is as much a cancerous neoplasm upon 
the body social as is the tramp who begs from door to 
door to appease his hunger. The unbridled ambition of 
avarice is as morbid as the apathy of the mendicant. It 
is the nature of poverty to enslave, but the slavery to 
v/hich the poor must submit is no more abjectly servile 
than that imposed upon its victims by the rapacity of 
greed. 

The poor we pity with a lavish sympathy, yet no less 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 243 

pitiable and little less worthy of our compassion are those 
whose love is wedded to lucre, whose god is gain. 

Concentrated wealth is more baneful in a nation like 
ours than poverty. Said one of the wisest of statesmen: 
^^Monarchies are destroyed by poverty; republics are de- 
stroyed by wealth.^^ His words are true. While poverty 
is the threatening foe of the empires of Europe riches is 
the menace most dangerous in our own land. So true is 
this that we might destroy all other existing evils and let 
riches prevail, and with it a tyranny despicable and cruel 
would remain. 

It has been taught and widely believed that the in- 
different and prodigal poor are beyond repair. The "sub- 
merged tenth/^ according to modern charity, are scarcely 
worth the effort required to save them. But their condi- 
tion is no more hopeless than that of the "emerged tenth^^ 
— the very rich whose sympathies are selfish, whose af- 
fections are calloused by the love of gold. 

Concentrated riches m^ore than poverty is a progressive 
disease. It is active, aggressive, usurping, and dangerous. 
More than poverty has it defied law, forgotten God, and 
ruined nations. More than poverty has it palsied industry, 
degraded labor, and corrupted the ballot-box. More than 
poverty is it the hidden power behind corrupt legislation, 
the saloons, and the evils that curse our financial and in- 
dustrial systems. More than poverty is riches a deep- 
seated organic lesion, poisoning and destroying the vital 
principles of our national life and threatening the in- 
tegrity of the Government itself. 

Another lesson to be learned is that concentrated riches, 
as well as poverty, is in need of destruction. The world 
has expected too much from the rich and not enough from 
its poor. The rich have been burdened with responsibil- 
ities, while the duties of the poor have been ignored. We 
would have the rich assume guardianship over the poor — 
make of the wealthy philanthropists in public and alms- 
givers in private. We forget that from among the com- 
mon people, even from among the poor and oppressed, 
God calls His heroes and chief workers. Poverty is a great 
teacher. It has a nobler mission than making misan- 
thropes of mankind. He who cowardly ignores the lessons 
poverty is wont to teach is as guilty as he who wastes his 



244 OUB NATION'S NEED. 

riches in luxury and riotous living. Widely separated as 
the rich and poor are in many respects, in responsibility 
they are a unit. The poor man, as well as the rich man, 
is his brother^s keeper. It is no more the duty of the rich 
to hold dominion over the poor than it is the duty of the 
poor to hold guardianship over the rich. Poverty more 
than wealth teaches men the needs of mankind. It is 
both futile and unfair to expect the rich as a class to 
heartily enlist in or wisely shape the course of any benefi- 
cent reform. The advent of doomsday is as promising. 
The divine rights of property will be as persistently de- 
fended as the divine rights of kings. It is as impossible 
for the rich to voluntarily give up their wealth or favor 
any measure that would jeopardize its possession as it 
would be for the royal potentates of earth to vacate their 
thrones and scatter to the winds the diadems that il- 
lumine their crowns. 

The rich, in common with the poor, deserve our sym- 
pathy and compassion. More than the poor are they 
enslaved. They demand help. Meager, indeed, are the 
lessons learned by our statesmen until the needs of riches, 
as well as those of poverty, are pointed out and placed 
within reach. One-sided and impotent will political and 
social reforms and Christian charity remain until the 
fact is appreciated that both riches and poverty are twin 
evils to be overcome and subdued. As existing in our 
land to-day, concentrated wealth and diffused poverty are 
a common curse. Their existence forms a dominating 
national characteristic. Their perpetuation means the 
nation's peril. Their continued growth and influence will 
mean the nation's ruin. 

Solomon classified riches and poverty together and 
prayed for deliverance from both. They are vitally asso- 
ciated evils; both ever-present symptoms of the same dis- 
ease and can never be divorced. It is impossible to foster 
one without fostering the other. It is impossible to de- 
stroy one without destroying both. So long as a nation is 
the paradise of the rich it will remain the purgatory of 
the poor. Whenever the poor are given what justly be- 
longs to them, it is inevitable that it be done at the ex- 
pense of the rich. With certain limitations these results 
aire inevitable. Through motives born of the noblest im- 



OUR NATION'S NEED. 245 

pulse and througli love, iinalloyed and of the heart, is 
it the plain dnty of the millions of common people in our 
land to demand that both riches and poverty, in their 
unnatural and unwarranted extremes, be speedily and 
effectually destroyed. 

Thus viewed, a divide-up and start-even would not be 
a war between the rich and poor, but a conflict in behalf 
of both. It would be a warfare that has been waged 
over and over again — a warfare to secure human liberty 
and equality. Lincoln said that this nation could not con- 
tinue half slave and half free. ISTor can it. It matters 
little whether the slavery means fetters which bind men 
-to the will of other men or fetters which bind men to the 
power of money. Mankind will not only revolt against 
slavery, but it will, with even greater protestation, revolt 
against the tyrannies of unjust and enforced inequalities. 
The love of liberty and equality is so great that while men 
may endure bondage and humiliation for a season, the 
time inevitably arrives when the passion for freedom and 
justice becomes so intense that it swells to the height of a 
fury. There is great truth in the words of De Tocque- 
ville: "Democratic communities have a natural taste for 
freedom. Left to themselves they will seek it, cherish 
it, and view any privation of it with regret. But for 
equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, in- 
vincible; they call for equality in freedom; and if they 
cannot obtain that they still call for equality in slavery. 
They will endure poverty, servitude, barbarism, but they 
will not endure aristocracy." 

By the close student of men and public affairs the op- 
portune time for a radical reform in our customs and po- 
litical conditions is seen to be rapidly approaching. While 
prosperity and adversity, in the form of riches and pov- 
erty, are both capable of proving of benefit, this benefit 
is only transient and is soon transformed into injury. 
The good effects of these opposite experiences are fast 
disappearing in our country. The rich have extracted all 
there is of genuine benefit from their possessions, and 
the reaction, in many instances, has already begun its 
work of ruin. To most of the rich the discipline of earn- 
ing a livelihood would prove a real blessing. The masses, 
in turn, have reaped all the advantages that adversity and 



246 OUR NATION'S NEED. 

oppression can bring. When either riches or poverty be- 
comes an inheritance, a fixed experience from the cradle 
to the grave, the higher motives and best energies are sel- 
dom awakened. In one instance man is robbed of the 
need and in the other of the chance to exercise his natural 
talents and possibilities. 

For a number of years we have been growing a crop, 
ever increasing, of two dangerous classes of men. One 
class, rich from birth, trained in luxury, isolated in so- 
ciety, poisoned with conceit, considering themselves su- 
perior in blood and finer in mind than the rest of the world, 
have lost sympathy and grown heartless, and are ready 
and willing to grind their fellows into ignorance and 
want to gratify their inherited and pampered appetites 
for indulgence and maintain their social dominion. The 
other class, born in poverty, grow up indolent, indifferent, 
and ignorant, neither trained in virtue nor disciplined 
in character, and, morbidly contented and apathetic, they 
settle like dregs to the bottom of our social life. These 
two classes are the counterpart of each other. They are 
both a constant menace to good government and they 
pollute society with conceit and luxury, calumny and 
' hate. 

But these classes are not yet large. The great mass 
of the people are patriotic and intensely loyal to the com- 
mon good. Legions of them, schooled in adversity and 
economy, are, to a remarkable degree, prepared to ap- 
preciate and wisely use a just proportion of property. 
Taken as a whole, no people in the world were ever better 
prepared to respond to increased aims and opportunities. 
"Give the people an object in life," said Edward Everett, 
"and the best methods will infallibly be suggested by that 
instinctive ingenuity of our nature which provides means 
for great and precious ends. Give the people an object, 
and the worn hand of labor will be opened to the last 
farthing, that its children may enjoy means denied to 
itself." 

While to divide up would be a new feature in the 
modern economy of nations, it is also true that our coun- 
try must of necessity adopt new and untried methods in 
promoting and preserving the national life. It is an in- 
teresting fact that America is peculiarly situated regard- 



OTfR NATION^ 8 NEED, 247 

ing the settlement of questions upon which citizens widely 
diiier. The records of history show that irreconcilable 
differences have usually been settled, if settled at all, by the 
weaker side taking refuge in some remote land to avoid 
presecution and ignoble defeat. Thus from the beginning 
of nations the oppressed have "sought a new country/' 
where more room and greater freedom abound. 

But a new settlement of differences must be found. 
Mankind has populated its last refuge. Every river has 
been forded, every mountain climbed, and ships laden 
with expatriated exiles have spanned, every deep. Follow- 
ing in the march of mankind the world's scepter has 
passed from Persia to Greece, from Greece to Italy, from 
Italy to Great Britain, and from Great Britain it has 
come to the New World. "Like the easter star which took 
its course westward until it stood still over the cradle of 
Bethlehem, so the star of empire, rising in the east, has 
led the course of empire until it stands still over our 
national domain, beckoning the people of earth to follow 
in its pathway."' Beyond us is the Orient. The bridges 
back to the fatherland from whence we came are forever 
burned. There is no new country in which the oppressed 
or despised can seek refuge and liberty. Here, for the 
first time in human history, men are required to settle 
their differences face to face. It is a new epoch that con- 
fronts mankind. The oppressed and the oppressor, the 
weak and the strong, the poor and the rich are clothed 
with a new duty. Heretofore it has been the privilege of 
the oppressed to plead humbly for justice and the equal 
privilege of the oppressor to refuse it. But America has 
established a new tribunal, before which her humblest 
subjects may come and plead their cause. To-day it is 
the duty of the oppressed to demand justice, and it is the 
equal requirement that the oppressor manfully and hon- 
orably grant it. 

These new and more intimate relations mark the ad- 
vent of a higher type of citizenship. They demand that 
public differences not only be settled, but that they be 
settled right. They mean that civilizing forces have 
progressed and that duty and law have received a higher 
and nobler mission among men. 



INDEX. 



Agassiz, 29. 
Anarchy, 64. 
Aretta, The, 143. 
Atherton, Chas. G., 202. 
Australia, History of, 143. 
Andrews, E. B., 82. 

Bancroft, George, 32. 

Baker, E. D., 90. 

Barbauld, 82. 

Beneficial Societies, 85. 

Beattie, James, 208. 

Bimetallism, 162; Interna- 
tional, 165. 

Blaine, Jas. G., on Constitu- 
tion, 66; on Money, 157. 

Brooks, Phillips, 14; 40. 

Brace, C. Loring, 14, 

Bright, John, 220. 

Burke, Edmund, 54. 

Building Associations, 84. 

Business methods, 86; and 
Civilization, 151. 

Booth, William, on child train- 
ing, 144. 

Bunyan, John, 235. 

Cadman, H. W., 40; 54; 104; 
236. 

Carlyle, Thomas, on nations, 
18; on religion, 118. 

Capital and Labor, 127; 140. 

Carnegie, Andrew, on Charity, 
217. 

Certificates, money, 161. 

Channing, on War, 22. 

Children, benefiting, 142; ex- 
pensive, 227. 

Chambers's Cyclopsedia, 143. 

Charlton, Mrs., on prostitution, 
144. 

Chautauqua Circle, 214. 

Christian Citizenship, 221. 

Christianity, duty of, 229. 

Cigarettes, 125. 

Civil War and a divide, 194. 

Cicero, 148. 

Clay, Henry, on money, 158. 

Comstoek Mine, 155. 



Competition, 128. 
Communism, 58. 
Confucius, 82. 
Constitution, 56; 64. 
Congress, Power of, 42. 
Co-operation, 86. 
Czar of Eussia, 21. 

Danton, G. J., 208. 

Depew, Chauncey, 90; on fail- 
ures, 193. 

De Tocqueville, on aristocracy, 
245. 

Debts, Release of, 73. 

Dick, Thomas, 220. 

Diversities, natural, 203. 

Direct Legislation, 181. 

Dollar, The, 158. 

Draco's Laws, 78. 

Drummond, Henry, 14; 208; 
on environment, 230. 

Dun's Review, 27. 

Duffie, Geo. M., 186. 

Eckles, Comptroller, 148. 
Elections, Honest, 183; 192. 
Emerson, on America, 238. 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, on 

money, 158. 
Everett, Edward, on parental 

love, 246. 
Excursions will be educational, 

214. 

Faber, F. W., 54. 
Failures, 27. 
"Fiat" Money, 160. 
Fiske, John, 118. 
Foreign Debts, 50. 
Froude, 118. 

Franklin, Benjamin, on inven- 
tions, 127; on money, 158. 
Fraternal Insurance, 85. 

Garfield, Jas. A., 54. 
Gaston, William, 132. 
Gambling devices, 126. 
Gladstone, W. E., on militar- 
ism, 21; on duty, 208. 



250 



INDEX. 



Gold, value of, 155; is fickle, 
161; in oceans, 161. 

Government ownership, 171. 

Grady, Henry W., 104. 

Grant, U. S., 90. 

Great Britain, conditions of, 
24; poverty of, 98. 

Greece, History of, 78. 

Gompers, Samuel, 82. 

Goldsmith, 0., 82. 

Harrison, Commissioner, on Re- 
sponsibility, 139. 

Harrison, Benjamin, 40; 54; 
148. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 54. 

Hare, Chas. J., 72; 148. 

Hazlitt, William, on adversity, 
88. 

Henry, Patrick, on Peace, 22. 

Herron, Geo. D., 72; 208; 
236. 

Hitchcock, P. D., 236. 

Hopkinson, Joseph, 54. 

Honesty, 55. 

Howitt, William, on Christian 
duty, 80. 

Home Journal, 107. 

Holland, J. G., 118. 

Howells, Wm. D., 132. 

Hopkins, Mark, 220. 

Holmes, O. W., 186. 

Human Nature, 16; 29. 

Humboldt, 132. 

Hull, Prof., on children, 143. 

Hume, J., 148; on money, 167. 

Inequalities, 17; natural, 203. 
Intemperance, 135. 
Immigration, 180. 
Initiative and Peferendum, 182. 
Income Taxes, 191. 
Intrinsic Value, 154. 
Ireland, condition of, 24; 98. 
Israel, laws of, 16; 73. 
Isaiah, 132; 186. 

Jefferson, Thomas, on major- 
ity, 42. 
Johnson, Alex., 90. 
Jubilee, 74. 

Kidd, Benjamin, on the edu- 
cated, 198. 



Kingsley, Charles, 72. 
Kossuth, L., on public neglect, 
220. 

Laws, unstable, 63; natural, 
76. 

Laveleye, Emile De, 72, 

Labor-saving machinery, 127. 

Lincoln, A., on Declaration, 66. 

Life Insurance, 85. 

Liquor Business, 120 ; 137. 

Literature, Vicious, 126. 

License, wrong and unprofit- 
able, 169. 

Lowell, J. P., 236. 

Lord, John, 118. 

Longfellow, 105; 186. 

Lycurgus, 78. 

Mammonism, 23. 

Mann, Horace, 32; 104. 

Mansions, private, 49. 

Marriage, 107. 

Mackay, Chas., 72; 208. 

Masses, Peaching the, 224. 

McAnally, Prof., on Marriage, 

107. 
Medicine, Secret, 122. 
Middle Classes, 197. 
Money Question, 153; kinds 

of, 154; amount needed, 

167. 
Monetary Commission, 167. 
Monopolies, 172. 
Moral Influence, 133. 

Nations must be saved, 235. 

Organization, Value of, 175. 
Ownership, Power of, 95. 
O'Pell, Max, 186. 

Paul, 54; 118; 202; 225; | 

236. 
Patent Medicines, 122. 
Peace Conference, 21. 
Pensions, 50. 
Pentecost, Dr., 77. 
Peel, Robert, 158. 
Philosophy of Divide, 15. 
Phillips, Wendell, on the people, 

102; on corporations, 186; 

on scholarship, 199. 



INDEX, 



251 



Philanthropy, 216. 

Pitt, William, 158. 

Postal System, 84. 

Plato, 132. 

Powderly, T. V., on drink, 137. 

Poor, The, prolific, 141. 

Politics, 187. 

Poverty a disease, 242. 

Prosperity in spasms, 239. 

Present Issues, 149. 

Precedent, 18 ; 197. 

Public Ledger, 58. 

Public Faith, 228. 

Public Ownership, 171. 

Queen Victoria on War, 21. 

Reeves, Robert N., 90. 
Reforms fail, 188. 
Reed, Thomas B., 202. 
Redemption Money, 162. 
Riches a disease, 242. 
Rousseau, 14. 
Rodgers, John D., 32. 
Ross, W. W., 118. 
Ruskin, John, 202; 220. 

Schools, Common, 84; 209. 

Scientific American, 143; 154; 
158. 

Schiller, 40. 

Seward, Wm. H., 32. 

Self Respect, 68. 

Senators, Election of, 183. 

Shaftesbury, Lord, 132. 

Shrady, Dr. Geo. F., on char- 
ity, 217. 

Slums, 93. 

Smith, Wm., on Jubilee, 75. 

Smith, Rev. S. M., 14. 

Solon, 78. 

Social Influence, 133. 

Solomon, 208; 220. 

Social Advantages, 209. 

System of Public Culture, 209. 

Strong, Josiah, on church, 229; 
236. 

Stock Exchange, 92. 

Standard of Value, 158. 

Sunday Rest, 126. 

Switzerland, Laws of, 182. 



Talents, Diversities of, 16. 

Tariff, The, 150. 

Tenants, 97. 

Theatres, 210. 

Trusts, 86; 129; 172. 

Tobacco, 125. 

Tolstoi on Charity, 217. 

Tramps, 140. 

Traveling Salesmen, 179. 

Tl'avel for instruction, 214= 

Tucker, Booth, 142. 

University Extension, 214. 

Unbelief, 225. 

Unit of Value, 158. 

Value, per capita, 35. 
Venice, History of, 157. 
Vicious, The, 140. 
Virgil, 148. 

War, use of, 19; unpopular, 

21; not last resort, 42. 
Wage-earning, 137. 
Warner, Chas. D., on crim- 
inals, 141. 
Washington, 148; on foreign 

relations, 167; on religion, 

223. 
Wanamaker, John, on politics, 

189. 
Wealth and Poverty, 26. 
Wealth of U. S., 34; per 

capita, 35; growth of, 35; 

58; vested in people, 60. 
Webster, Noah, 82. 
Webster, Daniel, 132; 202. 
Wetty, J. B., on fallen women, 

144. 
Whittier, J. G., 22; 104; 118; 

132. 
Wise, Daniel, 104. 
Willard, Frances, 118; 220; 

on poverty, 242. 
Wright, Commissioner, 85. 
Woodbury, Levi, 40. 

Young, The, 105. 
Young Men, duty of, 115; 
claims of, 225. 



Forty Popular Books. 



We call your special attention to the following list of 
copyright books written by popular authors, printed on 
best laid paper and bound in heavy paper covers. 

Any of these books can be obtained from your book- 
seller, or they will be sent by mail postpaid to any address 
on receipt of price, 50 cents each, by J. S. Ogilvie Pub- 
lishing Company, 57 Rose Street, New York. 



Any of these Books can be obtained from your bookseller, or they 
will be sent by mail postpaid to any address on receipt of 
75 Cents each for the cloth edition, or 50 Cents each for the 
paper covered edition, by J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING 
COMPANY, 57 Rose Street, New York. 



No. 1. ASENATH OF THE FORD. By ''Rita." 12mo, 
358 pages. 

The reputation of this popular author is sufBcient to ex- 
pect a good story, and no one will be disappointed in this one. 

No. 2. A SECRET QUEST. By George Manyille Fenn. 
12mo, 349 pages. 



No. 8. A MODERN DICK WHITTINGTON. By James 
Payn, author of *' For Cash Only," ^' A Prince of the 
Blood," *' By Proxy," ''Lost Sir Massingberd," etc., 
etc. 12mo, 334 pages. 



The Btory, In Its plot, holds the attention closely. Sir Charles Is admirably 
drawn, as are the women characters. There Is much of terse eplgrtun and clerer 
Bfttlre, here and there, which adds piquancy to the stoiy.— Boston Times. 

— 1-^ 



No. 4. ALONE ON A WIDE, WIDE SEA: An Ocean 
Mystery. By W. Clark Russell, author of '* My 
Danish Sweetheart," '^ The Golden Hope, "etc. 12mo, 
348 pages. 

The story is exciting. Women will read tlie story with peculiar interest and solemn- 
ly resolve never, never again to remove their wedding ring.— iView? York Herald. 

The story is powerfully told and marks a new departure by the author.— iVfeto 
York Tribune. 

The book is one of the freshest and most delightful of W. Clark Russell's sea 
Btories.— i^oston Traveller. 

Altogether, It is a moving tale and very Instructive as to sea lUe.-^BrooJclin 
Citizen. 

No. 5. A LOYAL LOVER. By Mrs. E. Lovett Camerok; 
author of ^'This Wicked World," '^Deceivers Ever,'* 
etc. 12mo, 294 pages. 

strongly dramatic, cleverly managed, well written, with a tragedy developed wlifli 
much power.— £osto7j Saturday Evening Gazette. 

No. 6. A HARD LESSON. By Mrs. E. Lovett Cameron, 
author of ^'In a Grass Country," ''A Life's Mistake," 
etc. 12mo, 343 pages. 

Mrs. Cameron has written many good books, but none 
better than this. 

A charming story, graceful in style, crowded with incidents, often very dramtUlO 
tJiough never sensational in the bad sense.— American Bookseller. 

No. 7. A DOUBLE LIFE. By Ella Wheeler Wilco-x, 
author of ' • Poems of Passion," etc. 12mo, 306 pages. 

In all of Mrs. Wilcox's writings she has done no better 
work than she has in this volume. She is one of the American 
authors that hold a high place in the opinion of the best critics. 

No. 8. A MODERN BRIDEGROOM. By Mrs. Alexander 
Frazer. 12mo, 312 pages. 



a- 



No. 9. A TYPICAL AMERICAN ; An Anonymous 
American Story. l2mo, 256 pages. 

In this story the hero illustrates in his own person the 
unique qualities and see-saw experiences of our ambitious 
public men. He is encircled by troops of friends, flatterers 
and foes, in society, in politics and in the press. The por- 
traiture and the ever- varying play of these characters around 
the central figure make up a comedy-drama of daily life as 
sparkling and faithful as anything now current in fiction or 
on the stage. 

No. 10. BACK TO LIFE ; A Story of a Mistake. By 

T. W. Speight. 12mo, 254 pages. 

A sensational novel, brightly written.— iVeio TorJc Independent, 
Will attract readers of the best class.— American BooTcseUer. 
Very well told.— Springjield Re%mbUcan. 

No. 11. " BEATRICE AND BENEDICK." By Hawley 

Smart. 12mo, 277 pages. 

This is a soldier's love story, with a dash of sport, and 
is in this popular author's happiest vein and most character- 
istic style. 

No. 12. BOB MARTIN'S LITTLE GIRL. By David C. 

MUERAY. 12mo, 383 pages. 

This is a fascinating book by a popular author. 

No. 13. CONSTANCE. By F. C. Philips, author of 
''Jack and Three Gills," ''The Dean and His 
Daughter," "As In a Looking Glass," etc. 12mo, 
305 pages. 
A story of extraordinary interest and dramatic power. 

No. 14. GRAVE LADY JANE. By Florence Warden, 
author of "The House On The Marsh," etc. 12mo, 
320 pages. 



No. 15. HER MAD LOVE. By Gerald Carlton. 12mo, 
282 pages. 

No. 16. THE HUNTING GIRL. By Mrs. Edward 
Kennard, author of ^' Pretty Kitty Herrick," etc. 12 
mo, 374 pages. 

No. 17. IN THE DAYS OF THE MUTINY. By G. A. 

Henty. 12mo, 397 pages. 

The book has a very clever and interesting plot. The scene is laid in India. The 
story is told in an easy, graceful, effective style. The characters are living beings, 
and the final ending is fitting. — The Boston Republic. 

It is a well told story of the great mutiny in ln^B,.~Syracuse Herald. 

No 18. INSCRUTABLE. By Esme Stuart. 12ino, 298 
pages. 

No. 19. LADY VERNER'S FLIGHTo By ^^ The Duchess." 
12II10, 310 pages. 

The girl next door will have this boofe within three days. It !s a pure story of 
English life, in which there is the most delightfully viliainous villain, who dies at 
Just the right time, and there are no less than three love affairs going on at the same 
time. — New York Recorder. 

No one of the popular fiction writers is more delightfully Interesting than the 
"Duchess," and in "Lady Verner's Flight" she quite surpasses her own standard 
of entertaining literature. The story is told with the animation and humor char- 
acteristic of this writer, and will be enjoyed by grave statesmen and Jurists and men 
of affairs who desire to give themselves mental relaxation.-~!Z7ie Boston Beacon, 

No. 20, THE LAST SIGNAL. By Dora Bussell, author 
of *' The Other Bond," etc. 12mo, 311 pages. 



No. 21. MR. AND MRSo HERRIES. By May Crommelin. 
12mo, 250 pages. 

No. 22. MAYFLOWER TALESc By Julian Hawthorne, 

Grant Allen, Richard Dowling and George E. 

Sims. 12mo, 2T6 pages. 
.. 

-4- 



Ko. 23. " OUT AT TWINNETT'S." By John Habbes. 
TON, author of *< Helen's Babies." 12mo, 283 pages. 

This is a well- told and thoroughly readable romance of 
New York life. Mr. Habberton's direct and unaffected style 
was never shown to better advantage than in this drama, 
which possesses an added interest by the fact that the scene is 
laid on the Sound, and some of its characters are graphic 
word-pictures of the quaint folk still to be found along that 
coast. 

No. 24. ONE TOUCH OF NATURE. By Maegaret 
Lee. 12mo, 300 pages. ^ ^ 

One lays down the book with the sense of having made pleasant acquaintances. 
t-New Fork Advertiser. 

Plenty of thrilling sensations that give it a refreshing yigoT.— Philadelphia Item. 
An intensely interesting story.— Pittsl>urg Press. 

A medal should be given to the author of this thrilling storj.—St. Louis Republic. 
A bright little story that keeps the heart sweet and glad all the way through.— 
Detroit News. 

No. 25. PRETTY KITTY HERRICK, A Dashing Story 
of Love and Sport. By Mrs. Edward Kennard, 
author of ''A Real Good Thing," *'The Girl in the 
Brown Habit," <^ Killed in the Open," ''Matron or 
Maid," ''Straight as a Die," etc. 12mo, 407 pages. 



No. 26. THE PEER AND THE WOMAN. ByE. Phillips 
t Oppenheim. 12mo, 259 pages. 

A highly sensational but quite unobjectionable romance 
of fashion and passion. 

An interesting and extremely Intricate story of crime and detention.— iVfetc For* 
Herald. 

An excellent story that wUl be read with pleasure by lovers of Gaborlau.-* 
Chicago Mail. 

A powerful story, abounding in plot and well tol6..-—Toronto Farm, 

There isn't a dull page in it.— Lancaster New Era. 

— 5 — 



Noo 27o Sm ANTHONY'S SECMET; of, A False Posi* 
tion~The Story of a Mysterious Marriage, By 

Adeline Sergeant, author of ''Roy's Repentance," 
*'The Great Mill Street Mystery," ''No Saint," etc. 
12mo, 628 pages. 

Miss Sergeant's books find a warm welcome wherever her dramatic and origi- 
nal style is known. This is her latest novel and is one of her best efforts.— Boston 
HeraZa. 

No. 28o SWEET IS REVENGE : A Sensational Novel. 

By J. Fitzgerald Molloy, author of "ThatYillain 
Romeo," "How Came He Dead?" etc., etc. 12mo, 
291 pages. _. _ 

This little romance will find plenty of admirers. — Pittsburg BuUetfn, 
Wholesome and well flavored.— ifmweapoMs Tribune. 

No. 29. TINKLETOP'S CRIME. By George R. Sims, 
author of " Ostler Joe," " Mary Jane's Memoirs," etc. 
12mo, 316 pages. 

No. 30. THE SORCERESS. By Mrs. Oliphant. 12mo, 
382 pages. Bound in cloth, with onyx side, 75 cents. 

No. 31. THROUGH PAIN TO PEACE. By Sarah Doud- 
ney. 12 mo, 380 pages. 

No. 32. TWO LOYAL LOVERS. By Elizabeth W. 
Johnson. 12mo, 381 pages. 

No. 33. THE OTHER BOND. By Dora Russell, author 
of "Foot-prints on the Snow," "The Broken Seal," 
"A Bitter Birthright," "The Track of the Storm," 
"A Fatal Post," etc., etc. 12mo, 372 pages. 

A pathetic, even tragic BtoYj.—BrooTclyn Eagle. 

A well-told, English story, full of exciting incidents, and presenting some very 
strong character drawing. — Boston Home Journal. 
A most entertaining story.— boston Daily Traveller^ 



No. 34. THE OLD MILL MYSTERY. BjA.W.Margh- 

MONT. 12mo, 246 pages. 



No. 85. THE MAN FROM THE WEST. By A Wall 

Street Man. 12mo, 246 pages. 

This book created a great sensation, and has been drama- 
tized for production on the stage. Every American should 
read it. 

No. 36. UP FROM THE CAPE. By Aunt Desire. 12 
mo, 252 pages. 

This is one of the most interesting books issued for a long 
time, and will make a record for itself. 

No. 37. VANITY'S DAUGHTER. By Hawley Smart. 
12mo, 320 pages. 



No. 38. WELL OUT OF IT. By John Habberton, 
author of '^ Helen's Babies," etc., etc. 12mo, 256 
pages. 

An intensely Interesting story, —Pittsburg Press. 

A medal should be given to the author of this thrilling story.— ^. Louis Jtepubllo, 
A bright little story that keeps the heart sweet and glad all the way througli.^ 
Detroit News. 

No. 39. WELL WON. By Mrs. Alexander. 12mo, 256 

pages. 

Full of snap and interest and altogether equal to anything 

written by this popular author. 

A clever and merry little story .—iVeitf TorTc Herald. 
A capital domestic comedy. — New TorTc Advertiser. 
This little romance will find plenty of admirers.— Pi«s&wrfl' BuUetin. 

No. 40. THE ADVENTURES OF A BASHFUL BACHE- 
LOR. By Clara Augusta. 12mo, 288 pages. 

— f — 



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